The difference is "YOU stole MY idea" vs "I built a better implementation of YOUR idea." In other words, just perception. remember how many different kinds of cereal are in the store.
If you wanted to start a car company, would you be concerned about "stealing ideas" because there were already other makes of cars on the market?
I think your response hits at the intent of my question. It is widely held that "execution matters more than idea", but I personally get tripped up by feeling like something has to come from my own light-bulb epiphany to be authentic or ethical. Clearly this is wrong.
Is this model of scenarios more or less correct?:
1 copy a mousetrap design: bad
------- ethical/unethical line -------
2 build your own mousetrap (even if there's really nothing "new" about it), but market it better or present it differently: pretty good
3 build a better mousetrap: really good
4 invent a whole new way to trap mice: awesome, not likely
2 and 3 are probably where the majority of successful business ventures fall. Most 4's probably started as 2 or 3.
Most 4's probably went out of business a long time ago. It's hard to sell something new in markets that don't trust new things.
You place the ethical/unethical line where you feel it should go; personally I don't see anything wrong with copying designs. I have a few wealthy neighbors. Know how they made their money? Everyday, boring easily copied stuff like car washes, rental real estate or owning a couple of fast food joints. Even the people I know who got rich from technology businesses were doing fairly pedestrian stuff like industrial instrumentation that's been around since the 50's.
I'm sure I'd end up doing many little things differently than you, and maybe even a few bigger things, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on this example.
Honestly? I don't know if I'd care much. If it turned out to be a perfect clone, I'd probably be a bit irritated, but in the end, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
I've been involved in a few tiny ventures (only me, or at most one other person) and one thing they've all had in common is that none of them were unique except in the personal approach I took to them.
So, as an example, you could start a business producing readers for diesel fuel flowmeters as I did, but would you have the same approach to customer service as me? Would you go out of your way to make using the unit as easy for your customer to use as you could?
The employee scheduler is the first software-only project I've ever done (and it was started primarily to learn web development), so maybe my reaction to being cloned would be different. But in the past I've built and sold hardware devices that had plenty of cheap marketplace competition so I'm used to that. My approach was to not care how many people were building the same thing or how much less they charged, but to focus instead on how happy I could make my customers.
I think of the product as a means to an end. The desired end result is profit and happy customers. The product or service is just the route you take to get there and really not that important in itself.
Awesome reply, thank you - honestly, I was looking for validation of my own similar thoughts on the subject. I have previously written about this subject here (very similar to your response): http://www.komlenic.com/242
Comments
The difference is "YOU stole MY idea" vs "I built a better implementation of YOUR idea." In other words, just perception. remember how many different kinds of cereal are in the store.
If you wanted to start a car company, would you be concerned about "stealing ideas" because there were already other makes of cars on the market?
I think your response hits at the intent of my question. It is widely held that "execution matters more than idea", but I personally get tripped up by feeling like something has to come from my own light-bulb epiphany to be authentic or ethical. Clearly this is wrong.
Is this model of scenarios more or less correct?:
1 copy a mousetrap design: bad ------- ethical/unethical line ------- 2 build your own mousetrap (even if there's really nothing "new" about it), but market it better or present it differently: pretty good 3 build a better mousetrap: really good 4 invent a whole new way to trap mice: awesome, not likely
2 and 3 are probably where the majority of successful business ventures fall. Most 4's probably started as 2 or 3.
Most 4's probably went out of business a long time ago. It's hard to sell something new in markets that don't trust new things.
You place the ethical/unethical line where you feel it should go; personally I don't see anything wrong with copying designs. I have a few wealthy neighbors. Know how they made their money? Everyday, boring easily copied stuff like car washes, rental real estate or owning a couple of fast food joints. Even the people I know who got rich from technology businesses were doing fairly pedestrian stuff like industrial instrumentation that's been around since the 50's.
What would you say if I saw http://www.whosofftoday.com/ and built essentially a clone at http://www.timeoffscheduler.com/ ?
I'm sure I'd end up doing many little things differently than you, and maybe even a few bigger things, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on this example.
Honestly? I don't know if I'd care much. If it turned out to be a perfect clone, I'd probably be a bit irritated, but in the end, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
I've been involved in a few tiny ventures (only me, or at most one other person) and one thing they've all had in common is that none of them were unique except in the personal approach I took to them.
So, as an example, you could start a business producing readers for diesel fuel flowmeters as I did, but would you have the same approach to customer service as me? Would you go out of your way to make using the unit as easy for your customer to use as you could?
The employee scheduler is the first software-only project I've ever done (and it was started primarily to learn web development), so maybe my reaction to being cloned would be different. But in the past I've built and sold hardware devices that had plenty of cheap marketplace competition so I'm used to that. My approach was to not care how many people were building the same thing or how much less they charged, but to focus instead on how happy I could make my customers.
I think of the product as a means to an end. The desired end result is profit and happy customers. The product or service is just the route you take to get there and really not that important in itself.
Awesome reply, thank you - honestly, I was looking for validation of my own similar thoughts on the subject. I have previously written about this subject here (very similar to your response): http://www.komlenic.com/242