They stole our idea!

What do you do when a competitor steals your idea? (plus: Justin
and Jon have the giggles).


People in tech get bent out of shape about who owns certain
ideas, UI patterns, and business models.

“They ripped off my idea”

"They copied us!"



This blog post by Justin Mitchell:


https://medium.com/@itsthisjustin/no-idea-is-unique-but-this-is-insane-a247ec80f6a7



Good Stackexchange thread:

“In the history of science, this is known as "Railroad
time". I.e, when the economy has reached a certain state of
infrastructure (coal, steel, and land available, plus steam
engines and demand for transportation), it's "Railroad time",
and the idea of building railroads occurs to many people
naturally at the same time.”



Documentary: https://www.generalmagicthemovie.com/

Multiple discovery (simultaneous invention): “the hypothesis
that most scientific discoveries and inventions are made
independently and more or less simultaneously by multiple
scientists and inventors”

Synchronicity: “the simultaneous occurrence of events which
appear significantly related but have no discernible causal
connection.”

Collective consciousness.


How to respond if a competitor rips of your
idea: 

Paul Jarvis tweet: "fathom copycats pop up so often that
i've lost count. we honestly don't mind them... they STOKE
THE FIRE to make our product even better."




Hedge against the competition:


Build your brand: the way people perceive
your company; how “top of mind” are you?


Build your audience: competitors can't
easily replicate who you know, and who knows you.


Customer service: how well you take care
of people; how responsive you are


Continued product improvement: you don’t
have to be the most novel; you just have to show continuous
improvement in vectors that customers care about.


Last longer than your competition: don’t
hire too many people, keep your costs low; if you can
outlast your competition, you don’t have to worry about
them stealing your stuff.





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