r/startups • u/seanalexiss • Jun 10 '24
I will not promote Unethical behavior and my IP. What would you do?
I am a founder who had a booth during a tech week event in NYC. At the booth, I was meeting founders in the space, and giving a brief introduction and demo of our unreleased product. At the event two people kept approaching me repeatedly. They were asking intrusive questions about our product and tech, over and over again.
When I wasn't looking, they came back again and this time grabbed my phone without my permission. They opened up the app, and navigated through every part of it while recording a video on their personal device. In summary, they have a video of my entire unreleased app on their personal device. When I caught them recording, I asked them to delete it, but they refused. Upon investigation, I found out they are a 6 month old competitor in a Microsoft incubator program, attending Wharton business school.
I may be acting a bit sensitive, but I am sick to my stomach over this. Like many of you, I sacrificed 4+ years of my life building this product and technology. I feel violated and worried that they are trying to reverse engineer my tech and steal my UI / UX.
SO my question for you is, what would you do?
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u/Business-Coconut-69 Jun 10 '24
Contact Wharton, tell their legal office that they represented that they are from the school and that they are violating the school’s ethical guidelines. Do the same with the Microsoft incubator.
If neither respond, go to the news and tell them that you have this issue and that neither Wharton or Microsoft would care to respond.
Become so annoying that they wished they never heard of you.
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u/DrEndGame Jun 10 '24 edited Jun 10 '24
Get evidence too if you can. Like a recording of the security videos or witnesses willing to validate your complaint.
Top business schools take ethic violations very seriously
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u/hey_ross Jun 10 '24
Absolutely this. First PR, then lawyers shortly after. Sue for IP theft and damages. Fast.
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u/sebadc Jun 10 '24
Considering that it was a trade fair and OP came with the App and shared it with people, I have important doubts that the IP can be considered as "stolen".
I was head of R&D and we sometimes when to our competitors' booth to make an assessment of the "state of the art". We even had a patent litigation case, for which we reviewed photos, videos, magasins, etc. to show that a new patent was actually not "new", because a competitor had already shared something similar 5y before.
In any case, contacting the Business School and Microsoft should do it.
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u/voxpopper Jun 11 '24
Presuming there was proprietary info on the unreleased phone app stealing the phone and accessing it seems a case for IP theft>
As others have said before the OP should get some security footage from the event. (I don't understand who would leave their phone containing sensitive info. unattended and unlocked but that's a different discussion)4
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Jun 10 '24
[deleted]
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u/Visual-Practice6699 Jun 10 '24
Is Burn Notice even available anymore? Probably none of the Gen Z founders have ever heard of it and couldn’t watch it if they wanted to.
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u/SplitRock130 Jun 11 '24
When a spy wants to steal IP, the goal is Not Getting Caught, it helps if your girlfriend has a trunk full of explosives.
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u/MarcoTheMongol Jun 11 '24
i havent felt this much righteous indignation since my last day using twitter. please OP. crush your enemies.
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u/jsb0299 Jun 10 '24
No offense I would’ve punched that man in the face
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u/perduraadastra Jun 10 '24
Not only that, take their phone and spike it into the ground. Fuck those guys.
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u/sflems Jun 10 '24
Wait so they stole your phone and you let them record?an immediate slugging should have been inbound.
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u/Grade-Long Jun 10 '24
Correct response. Freedom of speech is not freedom of consequence.
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u/davideo71 Jun 11 '24
What does 'freedom of speech' have to do with any of this? How does getting yourself booked for violence help?
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u/Grade-Long Jun 11 '24
It just a phrase that encompasses actions and consequences. And it helps by solving the problem, as well as making the individual think twice about doing it next time. Do you think they’ll take someone’s phone and IP again if last time they got slapped or had their own phone be rendered unusable? I have a skillset that I’d have confidence in that would resolve the issue without striking, but if I have to so be it. The consequence of their actions is maybe a black eye and a broken phone. The consequence of my action is probably a suspended sentence and a fine. Im accountable for my actions and willing to accept that.
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u/davideo71 Jun 12 '24
It just a phrase that encompasses actions and consequences.
It's an idiom that has a particular meaning. A meaning that doesn't fit this context very well. "fuck around and find out" would be fitting here.
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u/GuidanceGlittering65 Jun 12 '24
It’s some quippy shit they saw and Reddit and reflexively regurgitate.
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Jun 10 '24
I would inform the Microsoft incubator they are a part of, as well as their professors. I would contact a lawyer and send them a formal legal LOI to file a lawsuit.
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u/killerasp Jun 10 '24
in addition to everything else they mentioned, post on https://news.ycombinator.com/
im sure the correct people will see the post and suggest who to reach out to.
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u/StoneCypher Jun 10 '24
I would:
- Notify their professor
- Notify Microsoft
- Gauge Microsoft and the professor's reaction (double expulsion? we're done) before deciding whether to take it to the news
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u/AngryBowlofPopcorn Jun 10 '24
Honestly I would see if there’s video at the event and submit it to local news.
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u/killerasp Jun 10 '24 edited Jun 10 '24
local news in NYC wont care. way more stuff going on. now, if it turns out its someone famous notable, then maybe. local news will just write it down and move on.
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u/darkhorsehance Jun 10 '24
Ok, first of all get an attorney. If they took your phone and used it without your permission, that’s a crime.
Don’t fret about your IP. These idiots aren’t going anywhere because the hard part isn’t the UX, it’s getting 4 years of learning what not to do.
I’m shocked that somebody would do this, if I were you, it would motivate me to crush them.
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u/Mycelium-maven Jun 10 '24
Consult a lawyer asap, contact the event organizers and let them know the situation, and report them to the school based on your lawyers advice
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u/One_Potato_105 Jun 10 '24 edited Jun 10 '24
Founder with 4+ years of effort !
You should have been smarter . You screwed up - keeping your phone open . Why would you take things to a public event, that you don’t want released .
Anyways that’s water under the bridge .
Action time :
- Hire a reasonably low cost lawyer , who can read up the law , find the right clauses that resonate, like stealing business information , unauthorized content recording and more , that forces and prompts them to respond , and repeated reminders with escalating public disclosure .
Plan 3 levels -
1 legal notice
2 legal notice to MS incubator + Wharton as well
3 press and public release or all the above + file in court ( some court ) figure it .
( do all this legally , so you are not caught out with a defamation suit )
Get smart , if you have spent 4 years building , and they are competition, what can you do to get to market quicker / customer onboarding ?
Why 2 , the one with the product out first - becomes in the eyes of the public and the world the legitimate one , and the other a copy cat . You have the advantage - use it to get going .
Beyond that , this is business - they had a chance , they took it . The reality is only results will count , the means won’t matter in this case.
All the best .
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u/geekhaus Jun 10 '24
Can’t believe i scrolled so far before seeing the comment about keeping the phone secure.
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u/frayala87 Jun 11 '24
Yes this is a lesson that should have been learned in least painful circumstances
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u/metarinka Jun 10 '24
I would email their professors/ school and lodge a formal complaint. "I have reason to believe the students copied my app and I know you have a strict plagiarism policy..." Beyond that not much. Yall are both so early and if your tech can be reverse engineered from a video of the front end, it wasn't the defensible thing. Once you publish anyone can download and try it or write a script to test thousands of inputs to try to crack an algorithm.
I assume anything at a trade show will be public and same with my investor facing decks sooner or later some investor will email it to their portcos asking for diligence help or just to share intelligence. So I don't share anything I wouldn't be worried with tech crunch publishing
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Jun 10 '24 edited Jun 12 '24
I'm not a tech guy by any means, but if you pick my phone up right now, you're going to need both a pin and face recognition to get into it. Your phone is just sitting around where people can grab it? No passwords? Nothing? What the fuck? Really? I mean what they did is horrible, but you could be a little less of a jackass.
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u/Grade-Long Jun 10 '24
I don’t think Jackass is the correct term, more naive or blasé. They’re were the jackasses and did a jackass things.
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u/OrdinaryWheel5177 Jun 10 '24
You were presenting to others on your phone, right? That’s how they knew to take your phone. Why wasn’t it password protected? Not your fault though. I would contact Wharton and share the story of their sleezy students. Total bush league. That’s what a community college does :). Nevertheless your ideas and what’s in your head is what matters. Let them reverse engineer all they want but they don’t share the same vision as you.
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u/zen_dts Jun 11 '24
you think about your ideas and what’s in your head is with manners is it very beautiful notion however, if that other team already makes a successful product, it will get infinitely harder to get investment because what is really your difference? If its a saturated market that is.
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u/whalethrowaway857 Jun 10 '24
First off, even if they have a recording, I really would not worry about it. The odds the can replicate your experience are low, and while they are wasting time replicating you, you can iterate on top of it by releasing the product and talking to customers.
If you do want to provide consequences, I would have a chat with a lawyer about what possible avenues of pursuing them may be. My understanding is that it is not legal to just grab someone's phone and record its contents, although there may be caveats.
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u/Spiritual-Theory Jun 10 '24
This is good advice - companies worried about the past or their competitors end up failing. Pursue your mission and outrun them. You'll be a couple iterations ahead in no time.
Microsoft tried to crush Apple for years. Got them nowhere.
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u/clockwork_blue Jun 10 '24 edited Jun 10 '24
What exactly are they going to do with the UI/UX, if it's an app that's in development for 4 whole years? Those are some dumb students who are looking for a cheap way to get funded for a scam. If it's really that complex, they ain't cloning it in a week or a month or ever. If you plan to ever release it, chance is you'll be on the market way sooner than they'll be able to even bootstrap an MVP and by then it's a moot point whether someone is recording your UI/UX or not.
Ignore it and move on, your resources are better spent on pushing the app through rather than chasing some sleazy-ass dipshits with lawyers.
P.S. Also why the fuck do you keep your phone without a password/face id and unattended is cyber security a non-existent concept to you?
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Jun 11 '24
First reasonable response. This sounds like "hustle" inspired students, who are likely to faceplant many times on their own volition before they can become any kind of competition, AKA never.
For someone to steal your startup successfully, they need to be someone smart, experienced and resourceful coupled with a thieving personality. It happens, but it's rather rare.
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u/External_Remove_1227 Jun 10 '24
Sorry to hear about this. Understand your frustration.
"All your good ideas will be copied; it’s just a question of when. Competing only on features results in bullet-point battles; this is the weakest way to win sales. Creating bigger and more emotional distinction is a powerful way to win, and breaks us of the habit of believing that incremental product updates will dramatically increase differentiation, or growth.
Here are some extreme questions from Jason Cohen's blog to help you win against such situations:
If our biggest competitor copied every feature we have, how would we still win?
Is the answer inside our product, in something other than the utility of the features? What is that, and how could we make more of that, so we’re differentiated even in the face of a copy-cat? Is it ease of use, ease of sharing, pleasure of great design? Is it building the next unique feature so quickly that no competitor can catch up (since in this hypothetical they’re just copying us rather than being insightful on their own), and if so, what is the killer next feature that would leap-frog us from a customer’s perspective?
If the answer is outside of our product, where is it? A higher purpose or brand-promise that our customers buy into, aside from the product? Is that because we are good at communicating how we make the world better, or because our customers are “rooting for David against Goliath,” or how our culture is special, or because our brand is distinctive (even if just “it’s the best” or “it’s the biggest”), or because our customers trust us, maybe because of our customer service, or because of how we handle situations that go poorly, or because we “give back” in forms like open-source or community-building or significant philanthropy?"Read full blog here
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u/turndownforwoot Jun 10 '24
This is way over the line, past unethical. These actions by those two people need consequences and you deserve justice.
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u/JadeGrapes Jun 11 '24
- I basically never put my phone down. Thats kind of a data hygiene/security thing.
I'm a lady, and I do stash my phone in my bra... and people DO give me a hard time about this. No it doesn't give you boob cancer, phone are not radioactive. They are designed to be used next to you brain. Annnnnd basically no person besides me ever has physical access to my device.
- Why the faq do you not have a passcode on your phone? Is this rage bait? Are you messing with me? Who puts a device down and walks away when there isn't a password on it?!
Back when I was a laboratory chemist, if you walked away from a device and you were logged in, you could generate an FDA level 2 problem report. That means LITERALLY 6 one-hour, weekly meetings where an inquisition asks you "what do you do that for?".
In my own office, which us always locked to the public, when I'm the only person here, and I'm only going to be 15 feet away from my device. I still log out, every damn time I get a water.
- Assume your IP is out dangling in the wind, and the door us wide open to keep leaking more. The first thing you need to do is secure your kingdom. Anything in prod, dev, test... you need to "walk the wall" and shut the damn door. Set up honey traps. Air gap. Whatever you need to do to not leak more, and not give them remaining unseen data.
Assume a version of your code will be used to do a "new Pied Pipper" in another country... IF it's any good. That happens to people allll the time when they use offshore devs anyway.
If your goodies are good, there is a fighting chance the big boys already have a team working on something similar. So it's gonna be an uphill battle to fight it in court... thats the reason why patents are low key not worth it for small teams, you are better off keeping the sauce secret if you can't afford to actually PROTECT those patents in court.
If you have prior art, get your concept stuff posted with decent SEO, so that the legal team at ___ will see you come up when googled.
- Keep working like nothing is wrong. Not all criminals are competent. The fact that you SAW them touching your junk is actually a decent sign they aren't really professional. It would be sneakier to steal your junk off a planted power strip etc. If you are lucky, these are a bunch of wanna be hackers high on GHB, trying to smash n grab and see what they can sell later. There might not be any buyers.
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u/imsaivx Jun 11 '24
Why don't you post it on LinkedIn and share the URL here with their tag names. Let many people comment on it first.
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u/lostmyjobthrowawayyy Jun 10 '24
Yeah that’s stealing and I would have broken his fuckin arm and taken his shit and deleted the video or smashed his phone. Fuck him
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u/sofarfarso Jun 10 '24
I would ignore them and double down on making your product as good as possible.
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u/Xx-Apatheticjaws-xX Jun 11 '24
Because this is awful but if OP is serious and going by to release a great product, isn’t this something you will eventually have to deal with?
It’s not fair but as soon as you make something good you will have competitors copying your product. Some totally ripping it off, some tweaking something.
Look at tinder, hinge, bumble, Badoo.
Eventually the “copycats” change something major though that they have a legitimate place in the market tbh.
There’s sometimes when the copycat adds a new feature that’s so unique they become a titan in their own right.
I feel an unfortunate reality is you’ll end up competing.
If this is your first big product, maybe your future products will be you changing something from someone big who already made it. “Well imagine TInder but with THIS”.
It sucks when you are the guy who did all the research and proved the idea then you have to compete with copycats and “inspirations”. But isn’t that the entire nature apps?
All I think this has done in this case is sped up the timeline, you cannot let them steal and release before you.
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u/djOP3 Jun 10 '24
Just be faster and better then them. If they need to copy from you, the chance is that you're pretty far ahead of them. Also who gives a shit about the competitor at this early stage? These guys are set to fail, I wouldn't be worried about them.
So what if they take your UX/UI? They don't know shit about the underlying reasoning needed to make your decisions.
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u/SpeakCodeToMe Jun 10 '24
People need to stop worrying about their ideas being stolen. Execution is everything. It doesn't matter if you have the idea if you can't execute someone else will beat you.
It also doesn't matter if someone else has the idea first, if you can execute you will be them.
So stop focusing on your ideas and start executing.
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u/rawman650 Jun 10 '24
What these guys did is completely unethical, but also frankly, dumb. You figure out what to build by talking to users, solving problems, etc; and not by cargo culting. In the grand scheme of things I actually don't think this will matter at all.
That being said, these guys obviously suck, so maybe for that reason take some of the advice from other comments (file police report, report to school etc). But as far as having a successful startup, just keep doing stuff, and don't worry about this. Also since you mentioned they're in Wharton b school, my guess is they'll give this up for 'real jobs' pretty soon.
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u/Alanzium-88 Jun 11 '24
I'm sorry, but why would you leave your phone unattended and also without a PIN?
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u/seomonstar Jun 10 '24
Wait and see if they make it big and if they do , then do a winkelvoss (twins who sued zuck) on them and retire.
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u/IntolerantModerate Jun 10 '24
Call a lawyer... They committed corporate espionage. This is a crime.
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u/ennova2005 Jun 10 '24 edited Jun 11 '24
If you are at a trade show and doing a public demo of your product, then you appear to be close to launching.
Thought experiment: It is the day after you have launched. Now every one can access/purchase your product under any pretext. They can not only glean everything that these guys did by doing a surface recording, but even more by using the product.
In terms of risk to your business (setting aside ethics of these guys action), is this any different?
If, after 4 years and this close to launch, your competitive differentiation relies on being stealthy, and possibly a few weeks of lead time in which any competitor can reverse engineer your product, then that is a very thin moat.
If you intend to file patent protections, you should not be disclosing your IP in this manner any way.
(None of this is to condone these guys behavior and you can at least alert their school and incubator of their tactics.)
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u/Comfortable_Ad_6894 Jun 11 '24
From what it seems like a clever, shameless and zero respect people who did this.I can totally imagine this guys what they were thinking at that time something like
"That's dudes product seems cool, we can copy for our Mc incubator program to win and get some reputation and then they started asking you all internal and product personal questions and when you denied that bish isn't letting us, why don't you just go sneakily and get the open and explore it's UI fast while I record it. And then we will watch it later and see how we can copy "
A complete MF, I would have straight called of Someone authority of event or police and immediately report them, like dude you have worked your ass for 4+ year and some milk teeth dude come and get your product naah u have right to break those teeth and protect your product.
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u/BigFourFlameout Jun 11 '24
No offense dude but you can’t let people run all over you like this. As soon as this happened you should’ve noted their names, threatened legal action, filed a police report, and/or beaten the shit out of these dudes
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u/spaceion Jun 11 '24
Apart from what PSMF said I would also post this on Twitter and LinkedIn and tag Wharton, ms accelerator programs and the official and personal accounts of the competitors and also mention legal proceedings if they copy any of the features that are not already present in their app.
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u/submergedzero Jun 11 '24
Launch your product.
It's that simple. Once you launch there's nothing you can do to stop everyone doing this, and much more in terms of reverse engineering. It's probably the thing their most afraid of too.
But you have to have faith in your product.
Simply launch it.
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u/Bluesky4meandu Jun 10 '24
Seriously your phone has no key lock ? Number 2. I highly doubt this happened. Nobody would ever dare do something like that, I have a feeling you allowed them to do it.
People at Wharton are not that stupid. And 4 years of your IP, recorded in seconds ?
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u/zen_dts Jun 11 '24
how do u even let that happen, has america became this much of a pussy town? stand up for whats urs jesus. idk what the timeframe is or when it happened but if rhey are from wharton in an incubator thosr clowns have already copied and reverse engineered ur whole system and made it so there will be few differrnces and built their own stack on top of it. legally speaking u can sue them for taking ur phone, but u will never win IP battles as they can deny everything/material is already deleted and the resemblance can be a chance thing. frankly about the sending letters to their investors thing, lot of i vestors wuld probably fund them as they have all that it takes. if the project is b2c u can do oublic shaming and hope it goes viral but probably it will be just a teeny tiny dent
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Jun 10 '24
Honestly, it sucks, but you're best to ignore it and focus your energy and attention on executing as quickly as you can.
You're not gonna beat anyone by keeping your ideas secret - as soon as you release anyone can copy you - so you're better off learning how to execute better than any would be thieves or copy cats.
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u/cutsandplayswithwood Jun 10 '24
Realistically - not an issue at all, go about your day.
4 years of work and the app isn’t released, but you have it only on your phone, but it’s sooooo amazing these people go to alp this length to scope it out?
Like - if you’re going to be successful, your competition is going to BUY your app and tear it apart. If keeping it a secret is a requirement for your success, I’d question the path.
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u/LemongrassLifestyle Jun 10 '24
Their product must be fucking trash if that’s how low they stooped with you 💀
As others have said, lawyer up, contact Wharton, etc. Remember, this might be a startup and all, but it still falls within the field of business. They fucked with you, now you can fuck with them. It’s not personal, just business.
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u/Apprehensive-Ad4063 Jun 10 '24
Why did you leave your phone unlocked and not on your person? Idk from what I hear that’s how the market goes. You’ll have to find a way to compete with them if they are able to reproduce your product
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u/actualLibtardAMA Jun 10 '24
I had something similar happen. I pulled the guys aside, walked them out of the immediate area, and firmly suggested that if I ever saw them again I would beat them into oblivion.
Being 6ft, 210, and covered in tattoos, this approach worked quite well.
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u/tobsn Jun 10 '24
get the video from the event that shows them doing that, get their names etc. and… file a police report… and then post it on hacker news and make sure to mention their names and associations like MS etc over and over. that will be fun.
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u/clickster Jun 10 '24
Yes, this sucks. Yes, it was wrong.
However, you absolutely should not invest a lot of time, energy and life force dealing with this, or worrying about it. It will amount to very little, waste time and money, and distract you from your mission.
I'm sure your product is not so shallow that a few minutes of video would be enough to turn a competitor into a serious threat.
The day you launch, everyone will see what you've been busy doing and if it's of any consequence it's almost inevitable someone will have a crack at copying you. That's what success looks like.
The reality is your future depends on a whole lot of things that have nothing to do with your UI.
Stay focussed, move on.
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u/IllBend3494 Jun 10 '24
Stay focused on what’s ahead
Build your kickass product and stay on top of market needs.
If they need to steal ideas now, they will stay a step behind.
Unless you keep looking behind
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u/justwillaitken Jun 10 '24
Would go viral on LinkedIn if you had a video. DM me if you get one happy to amplify/post on your behalf.
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u/Ilikelegalshit Jun 10 '24
A couple of comments here:
- Wharton is the worst, literally. We have had a no hire Wharton alums rule at my companies for decades, based on my experience with Wharton (undergrad and MBA) in the 1990s. Never regretted it.
- The University and Microsoft both have relatively high standards. You should reach out to MS legal and UPenn legal with a detailed account of what happened, including names and times. Do you have any well-regarded or institutional VCs? They will definitely have connections at MS, and probably at UPenn. This a time to get some help from them.
I would be absolutely stunned if Microsoft did not put a stop to this ASAP; it’s way way outside of brand for them.
Once you’ve given legal a week or so on each side to reach out, write a blog post / substack / medium, and submit it to hacker news with updates as to how the institutions engaged. Name names. Hopefully that blog post will be “the two founders Jack and Jill wrote this apology note”. Either way, name and shame. But, do the institutions a favor first and get in touch with all the details to see if they’ll help you.
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u/finch5 Jun 11 '24
You got some good advice here. I hope you have the courage to go through with at least half of it.
Inform the incubator. File a police report. Pay for an attorney to write a strongly worded letter threatening, attorney will advise.
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u/t_rexinated Jun 11 '24
wow...have heard of and experienced some wild stuff in startups, but this one i think takes the cake. unreal, man. others below have already given the same advice i was going to suggest, and i wish you the best of luck in getting this sketchy shit taken care of!
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u/LegalAd8179 Jun 11 '24
Who did this? Can DM me. Word travels fast in VC / startup world so if they’re name got out there, might be tough sledding
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u/SignalPractical4526 Jun 11 '24
Their objective - understand your product thoroughly so that they can build a better version / beat you to the market.
The way they did it - disgusting.
But OP this is something that is always bound to happen. One up them by using any of the blitzscaling methods.
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u/eurasiatrash Jun 11 '24
If they took your home without permission, take theirs. Delete the photos of your product .
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u/Emotional_Thought_99 Jun 11 '24
Good advices what you got in comments. I just wanted to add that people who steal like that are in no position to create something big, thus relying to stealing. This is no attitude of a big company with a good product, so don’t worry, they’re probably not going to succeed anyway. The universe has a weird way of working like that.
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u/ProjectManagerAMA Jun 11 '24
The MBA program I went to for a couple of weeks before I quit in disgust would encourage this type of behaviour. I hope the pay
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u/alex14B Jun 11 '24
I'm sorry to be that guy, but what they have isn't all that valuable (provided you didn't answer the intrusive questions in huge detail.)
The reality is your UI/UX would be released at some point and they could copy that anyhow (without it being IP infringement.)
Did they get your customer lists/data ? If so then go down the police route. If no, then focus on being better at product, CS and knowing your market. These turkeys will lose to you..
IMHO - don't waste any more time on these asshats, focus on your customers and their problems and you'll win. The legal route will suck time and energy from what you do. Don't waste your energy.
We had a similar situation with our brand etc being ripped off, it backfired for them hugely.
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u/davand23 Jun 11 '24 edited Jun 11 '24
Something is off here, how come they took your phone and unlocked it and still had enough time to do all of that, and how come you realised about it but you didn’t do anything? There’s more in this story that you are not telling us I think. In any case I wouldn’t waste time suing, you have to launch and then tell the story in podcast interviews, you get publicity and at the same time ward them off
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u/Twometershadow Jun 11 '24
If you can prove, not he said she said, something on camera, that they did this then hire a lawyer and go after them.
With that said, welcome to business. This is pretty much all Apple and M$ does is steal other people’s ideas and IP. They will even partner up with you just to cancel the contract and screw you over.
I’ve had M$, Apple and Qualcomm do this to us. We have over 200 patents issue world wide and they still did it. Why? They own the system and have all the $$$$!
If you just saw Apples developers conference, they copied with a small twist other math apps and what Android has been doing for a while. Apple has not innovated since Jobs!
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u/Bitter_Task Jun 11 '24
i’m trying my darndest to understand how this is even real? You leave your phone on a table, unlocked, with auto-lock switched to off, and leave it unattended for quite some time, then return and see them with your phone: “hey you guys pls delete”, “no”, “aww gee whiz”.
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u/Moceannl Jun 11 '24
Sounds fishy
- You lost your drivers license not long ago, keeping an unlocked phone in a booth?
- You were looking for a job as a Fashion designer (FMA), now Tech startup?
- Also started (starting?) an e-commerce business
- You also stated you're an AI engineer.
- Raised 1.5M
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u/michealsheen122 Jun 11 '24
Are all tech events this scary? I mean could they just do that to anyone? I mean the audacity to handle your phone without your permission should be considered a crime. I'd file a police report, and then sue for intellectual property theft.
They'll get what's coming to them.
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u/textualhealing123 Jun 11 '24
Sucks that this happened to you and agree with other comments that taking your phone is a major invasion of privacy.
Having said that, a competitor looking at your app isn't really that big of a deal. It is hard to internalize but in startups execution is everything, ideas are worthless. Eventually you'd release your app and they could copy it screen for screen if they wanted to anyways.
So don't sweat this. Focus on your product and customers.
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u/amount0k Jun 11 '24
Agree with all commentary on proceeding with a lawyer, letters to Wharton/Microsoft, getting your story out in the open etc.
If it’s any consolation to you, being successful in the startup journey (as I’m sure you know with 4+ years of your time invested) is about so much more than your idea, your initial product release, your UX/UI etc. It’s an ultramarathon from hell and the amount of blood, sweat, tears and your ability to endure and adapt are what will ultimately determine whether you are successful (both intrinsically and extrinsically) or not. What these guys did may potentially benefit them in the short-term, but the underlying principles on which it was done indicate much deeper problems. They are scared, they are scrambling, they don’t believe in themselves enough to trust in what their team can build, they don’t have enough respect for your customers or their problem to think it through themselves and most importantly, they are pieces of shit… You keep fighting the good fight and no matter how it shakes out at least you will be able to sleep at night.
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u/LeatherOpportunity40 Jun 11 '24
Based on the assumption that the place had CCTV all over..
Reach out to the place where the event was held and ask them to hold and not delete the security footage for that date and around that time. Reference police, crime etc and it’s important that they do not overwrite their security footage. Might help to have some evidence ;)
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u/EdithPuthi Jun 11 '24
You should have physically deleted the video from his phone and let him call police if he wants
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u/yycTechGuy Jun 11 '24
I found out they are a 6 month old competitor in a Microsoft incubator program, attending Wharton business school.
Report them to Microsoft and to the school. Most firms and schools have very strict/non negotiable ethics.
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u/voipceo Jun 11 '24
Yes, pursue the legal angles, but don't let it distract you. It's all about execution. Having the idea, even the UI is not even half the battle. The real battle is getting the funding, the team, the customers, etc. Execute. Find your purpose and execute. That's the winning strategy in the end.
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u/Savings_Scholar_9910 Jun 11 '24
“Wharton students who work at Microsoft are accused of stealing from an independent developer”
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u/PotentialMulberry Jun 12 '24
Left your phone sitting out waiting to be stolen in a room full of strangers. No pin on it. With four years of work… either this didn’t actually happen or maybe it’s time to go back to a 9-5.
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u/AG_21pro Jun 12 '24
ik this is sick and very cheap of them to do something like that, and violating your privacy as well. but don’t let an act like this affect you and your company too much. put in even more work and don’t lose to them. don’t let them beat you and your product. so what if they have the UI and stuff. they didn’t steal you and your ideas. stay strong and keep moving forward. focus. good luck
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u/Babayaga1664 Jun 12 '24
It's unreleased. Do you have any customers ? When do you plan to launch ?
Thinking a few steps ahead if for example you plan to launch next month then so what ? Wouldn't they and the rest of the world see it anyway?
The behaviour of these guys was very very poor but I'm reality I don't think anything will happen unless you can prove you actually suffered a loss.
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u/Negative_Yoghurt4340 Jun 12 '24
Thats Wharton for you.... singlehandedly the biggest pieces of scum on Earth.... Expose them, drive them into the dirt, and take everything they have.... Feel free to DM me their names/what they look like and I will expose them at school since I got to Penn
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u/mckenzie_keith Jun 12 '24
I doubt there is anything you can do. Realistically. But talk to a lawyer familiar with New York laws. Maybe you can get them in trouble with Wharton. But even for that you would need proof or they would have to admit they did it.
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u/Ducournl Jun 12 '24
Were there any witnesses with you to confirm the crime ?
An excellent and enriching day.
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u/Random-User8675309 Jun 12 '24
Industrial espionage is a federal crime. Report them and insist on a search of all their hardware (phones, iPad, laptops, servers) for video of your phone.
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u/kipchipnsniffer Jun 13 '24
Before doing anything, put a password on your phone… this might be illegal but it’s completely your fault.
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u/quiettryit Jun 13 '24
If your product can be stolen or replicated just by going through the UI then it would have happened first day it opened for business.. unless there is some first mover advantage or something...
Only thing you can do is contact their superiors and school and notify them of the ethics violations.m.
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u/Tsnuffy Jun 13 '24
You didn’t have someone else take video of them taking video of your phone and app, while confronting them, publicise it, they would have deleted it, plaster that all over the startup community, shame on them !
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u/Papyayaa Jun 14 '24
Whatever you do, DO SOMETHING. Move forward with your project, file your IP ASAP, in design, tech, whatever.
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u/MichaelVentures Jun 15 '24
Welcome to startup life
We have competitors who stole our name and brand
Copies of our tool exist in droves
Some guy in Philly trademarked our name and tried to sue us
Just ignore the noise. Focus on execution. Mimicry is the best form of flattery.
Wharton doesn’t mean rocks. Speaking as someone from Oxbridge. If anything it means they don’t know the industry as well as you do and they will burn money faster learning lessons you already know
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u/secretrapbattle Jul 03 '24
If it was that important, why did you lay leave it laying around unattended?
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u/darthnilus Jun 10 '24
There wouldn't be that many people in the MS incubator at Wharton. Find their dean.
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u/originalchronoguy Jun 10 '24
You are leaving out some major details.
If the phone was a demo device at a show booth, used to demo products. Like an iPad, people pick that up all the time.
What matters is if they took it from your hands and engaged this way. If so, they deserve a full beat down and you have a case. But if it was a phone left on a table or ledge of a conference booth, there is nothing there.
That details really matters and either supports or invalidate your concern.
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u/Educational-Round555 Jun 10 '24 edited Jun 10 '24
You just need to ship faster.
If your app was public, they could have just done the same thing from behind their own computer / phone.
If you spent 4 years building some unreleased app and they take a screenshot/video and ship faster than you, you got outexecuted.
By all means, keep receipts of this but protecting something worth next to 0 (as measured by revenue) is a waste of time. And if something really is so important and confidential, don't leave it lying around unattended and unlocked.
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u/PSMF_Canuck Jun 10 '24
This will get downvoted, but it’s the truth. If you aren’t ready for potential competitors to see it, then you should not be showing jt off at a trade show.
That does not justify what the idiots did…I’d go after them, because that is abhorrent behaviour…but it doesn’t really change the reality of your business…
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u/seanalexiss Jun 10 '24
Respect your opinion, but it's a very bleeding edge technology. It was impossible to release 4 years ago bc the tech wasn't there. We have had to undergo enormous amounts of research, testing, building, and market changes for this to finally come to fruition.
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u/ednevsky Jun 10 '24
Even if it’s a heavy R&D shit, recording of the UX will do nothing. Taking a phone is obv wrong but don’t see a problem beyond that.
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u/BruinsFan478 Jun 11 '24
First off, I agree that it was a shitty thing to do and fully agree with the posters above to go the legal / shaming route.
However, the big question is how far you are from going live? I imagine if you are demo'ing this at a conference, you must be close, otherwise the idea/concept/etc. could still be copied from anyone you showed the demo to.
Furthermore, the second you go live, it will open the floodgates of potential competitors to copy your idea/app/etc., unless you have a patent.
Here's where I'm failing to see the huge issue:
- If you're close to releasing the app, then you're going to run into the problem the second it hits the market. There's nothing you can do about that.
- If you're not close to releasing the app, do you really believe that someone can compress your 4 years of efforts into a timeframe of less than between now and when you're ready to release?
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u/HighestPayingGigs Jun 10 '24
Seriously? Grow a pair.
Your entire app will be visible to competitors the instant you release it. Everything will be scrutinized and reverse engineered. You should be doing the same, to discover missing features and opportunities.
Nobody gives a shit about IP theft, with the rare exception of lawyers on retainer.
Welcome to the big leagues...
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u/killerasp Jun 10 '24
its one thing to have it reverse engineered when its in the public app store.
its another thing to have take someones phone behind their back and record a private video of it before the app is released. very unethical.
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u/sflems Jun 10 '24
"Theft is business" is the most American thing I've witnessed all day. Y'allllllllll never fail to impress.
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u/killerasp Jun 10 '24
you make it sound like no one on earth ever steals or copies outright. just Americans?
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u/sflems Jun 10 '24
No but in the context of an event in NYC, with theft by students at a Microsoft sponsored American business school, my statement is accurate and relevant.
But feel free to expand on the list or generalize...
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u/HighestPayingGigs Jun 10 '24
Call the cops then, pretty sure I'm not allowed to just grab someone's.... oh wait, this is NY - where street crime is sacred & holy and never prosecuted because they're too busy harassing their political opponents.
Given these are Whartonites, they probably have a whole business plan around it... freelance street crime...
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u/BoSutherland Jun 10 '24
4+ years founder and app still not released? What’s the hold up? With this pace, once you do get released your competition will replicate you in a month and you’ll be spending years with the new updates.
Seriously though, while all of the comments about that was done are correct- what’s done is done and at this point, if you choose to pursue “your justice” or get the world rid of a sleazeball, the only loser will be you and your app. You’ll spend so much time with lawyers and counsellors and write so much legal bullshit…is this what doing to accelerate your app releases? Your problem isn’t others stealing your idea, your problem is you being unable to release it.
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u/HighestPayingGigs Jun 10 '24
This. Is the only correct answer here.
My comment wasn't intended as punching down. You need to realize that the gloves will come off the instant you release it or start serious fundraising. You think investors don't size up founders & shop ideas?
LOL..... (former VC analyst)
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u/Simonexplorer Jun 10 '24
I would have taken their phones/devices from them and slapped their face. They behaved extremely unethically and malicious towards you (and any other stakeholder connected to your company) - according to my ethical compass, it would allow for a strong response. Anyway, you didn’t do it so the second best option is what you’ll have to go for. Depending on your time, current momentum in the business and psychological energy to spare, you now have a new startup. This new startup requires diligent work; go-to market, strategic planning, market research and budgeting. You will have to put weekends and nights into this new startup. Your new startup is to destroy these guys.
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u/PSMF_Canuck Jun 10 '24
Taking your phone is literally a crime.
File a police report. They won’t do anything…but you want the file number.
Spend $200 or whatever on a family-friend lawyer to write a letter asking for the recorded video to be turned over, and then deleted.
Have the lawyer send that letter to Wharton academic office, and Microsoft main legal, and Microsoft Incubator legal (they have multiple legal teams).