81–89 of 89 posts
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Looks like you were using the design for a new product as well ( http://www.sharebooster.com ). http://i.imgur.com/MXCuN.png You going to take that down also?
That logo looks an awful lot like the Luanchbit logo as well. http://www.launchbit.com/
I had to really concentrate to see the difference.
Serving the assets was a big mistake, but isn't this the same forum that overwhelmingly says copying isn't stealing and that no harm is done to the original creator when you duplicate their work? Now, suddenly everyone's a hard ass about IP? In this case more than all the others argued here, if you exclude the assets problem, there was zero detriment caused by using this design. It's not a competing product, and it d…
You see people on HN saying it's okay to download a tv show; you don't see anyone saying it's okay to burn that show to dvd and sell it many times.
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The real lesson here is a hidden one for YCombinator startups: YC gives you money, but they apparently do not provide you with advisors, handlers, lawyers or PR people who will intervene to stop you from making such a boneheaded, potentially explosive move, nor step in and help you figure out how to gracefully recover from a mistake. Seriously? Credit where credit is due? Ha ha, it was stupid, we stole your design AN…
If you need an adviser, handler, lawyer or PR person to tell you "don't blatantly copy/steal other people's shit", you shouldn't be in business, you should go back to kindergarten.
When they invite you to their program or (better yet) get you more funding, it probably feels like a mandate. Which makes things so much worse without guidance.
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Thanks for that. Now I am far less sad about stealing Curebit's concept. Their idea is fantastic, but I found it easier to just copy the concept than integrate with their APIs. Does anyone else find it strange that the article claims they have 1000 customers, and minimum pricing of $50/month, but they raised $1.2M? Why bother raising money if you are already close to a run-rate of $1M? My guess is they have closer to…
I doubt very many people find it strange -- just because you have revenue, or are profitable, does not mean you're "in the clear". Companies typically raise additional capital so they can accelerate their growth. Your assumption that companies only raise because they aren't cash-flow positive is misguided.
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Sure, people argue on the semantics of IP infringement and while many feel that intellectual property laws are woefully one sided, most of what I've seen suggests that at least a fair number of people feel that copying material in contrary to the creator's wishes is wrong. Do some folks do it anyway? No doubt. Regardless, I think much of the hard assedness has been in response to the media companies and lawmaker's ap…
> It's more of a "dude, not cool" thing to me. I think it's more of an issue that calls into serious question their integrity, motivations and skills. It's pretty hard to start a company out of an incubator with community support when you'e signaled that you've no ethical regard for the very community that supports you.
So maybe it’s time to take one of these Fridays off and just copy something."
(http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2412-how-do-you-turn-inspirat...)
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Hey - I'm one of the founders of Curebit, and yes - it was a boneheaded move.. We had a different homepage, were a/b testing different pages, came across the 37signals post and were like 'wow we should see how that converts!' We are big fans of rails and what 37signals is doing and did not really think through the implications of what we were doing. We just kind of thought about it as a fun test to run. Clearly it wa…
You missed this in the 37signals post you referenced. "Please note: What works for us may not work for you. Please do your own testing. Your conversion rates may suffer if you copy us."