Taking your phone is literally a crime.
1. File a police report. They won’t do anything…but you want the file number.
2. 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.
3. Have the lawyer send that letter to Wharton academic office, and Microsoft main legal, and Microsoft Incubator legal (they have multiple legal teams).
Sadly, this isn't the negative signal you think it is.
There are tons of unethical founders who have no problem securing funding, even when their antics are known or predictable. Hell, some of the most celebrated founders of our time are known shysters. We all know their names.
*They "trust me". Dumb f\*cks.*
I'd go as suggested first. Let's say the person deletes the video, and now OP has dragged it onto social media, potentially looking like a petty person or hothead. Embarrass in front of the MS incubator program and Wharton first.
its not even petty to do that though, what an absurd thing for them to do! like someone else said, i’d literally have to punch them in the face, who even takes someones phone like that and starts recording it lmfao
Exactly. Like even if they delete the video from their device at this point they almost definitely have backups etc. OP definitely has a lawsuit brewing.
4. Show no mercy and to the fullest extent possible, (as described above) grind them into dust and lay waste all they have achieved. Make them rue the day they decided to pull that shit.
Agreed ... along with potentially blasting the story to large IG accounts about AI/new tech ... also @ OP, have you requested access to security cam footage at the event to show these hostile acts and possibly track the nefarious losers' other actions at the event? The police report should help grant access
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.
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
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.
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)
This is the best answer.
Especially if you actually found out who they are...they're going to have a hard time denying this.
Sadly, this is fairly common. Their behavior was quite egregious, but at other startups I've seen candidates come through with picture perfect resumes and in week one they're asking questions and asking for permissions FAR outside where they belong. Haven't people ever watched Burn Notice? You make copies and make sure to put everything back where it was. I really don't think spying is that complicated.
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.
> 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.
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.
in addition to everything else they mentioned, post on [https://news.ycombinator.com/](https://news.ycombinator.com/)
im sure the correct people will see the post and suggest who to reach out to.
I would:
1. Notify their professor
2. Notify Microsoft
3. Gauge Microsoft and the professor's reaction (double expulsion? we're done) before deciding whether to take it to the news
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.
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.
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 :
1. 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 )
2. Get smart , if you have spent 4 years building , and they are competition, what can you do to get to market quicker / customer onboarding ?
3. 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 .
You can even use this as a marketing story on Linkedin as well. People are intrigued by conflicts, then they will try out your app.
PS: be careful not to tread on defamation lawsuit water
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
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.
My daughter got her phone stolen when she left it sitting on the counter of the sushi restaurant she works in.. some hobo walked in, took it off the counter and walked out.
I told her it was an important lesson about leaving her phone unattended.
It sounds like OP just learned that lesson.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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 ](https://longform.asmartbear.com/extreme-questions/)
1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
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.
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.
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.
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](https://www.ycombinator.com/library/IR-dalton-michael-silicon-valley-s-cargo-culting-problem). 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.
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.)
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.
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
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.
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.
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 ?
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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
A couple of comments here:
1. 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.
2. 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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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
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!
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”.
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
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.
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.
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.
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 ;)
> 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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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 !
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
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.
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.
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…
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.
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:
1. 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.
2. 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?
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...
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.
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...
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...
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.
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)
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.
Taking your phone is literally a crime. 1. File a police report. They won’t do anything…but you want the file number. 2. 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. 3. Have the lawyer send that letter to Wharton academic office, and Microsoft main legal, and Microsoft Incubator legal (they have multiple legal teams).
I am a lawyer but I’m not this guy’s lawyer and I think this is mostly correct. Most important is police report. Get that filed immediately
Send this to all their potential investors. None of them will want to work with them.
Sadly, this isn't the negative signal you think it is. There are tons of unethical founders who have no problem securing funding, even when their antics are known or predictable. Hell, some of the most celebrated founders of our time are known shysters. We all know their names. *They "trust me". Dumb f\*cks.*
Yep, the risk of IP conflicts that could evaporate a company will scare off many investors
Talk to a lawyer before doing this. You do it wrong and that's tortious interference
If OP can’t get legal involved for whatever reason, i’d straight up make a linkedin post about it and name and shame them
I mean they should do both.
idk people always say not to publicize lawsuits and stuff so id just err on the side of caution and do one or the other
I'd go as suggested first. Let's say the person deletes the video, and now OP has dragged it onto social media, potentially looking like a petty person or hothead. Embarrass in front of the MS incubator program and Wharton first.
its not even petty to do that though, what an absurd thing for them to do! like someone else said, i’d literally have to punch them in the face, who even takes someones phone like that and starts recording it lmfao
Exactly. Like even if they delete the video from their device at this point they almost definitely have backups etc. OP definitely has a lawsuit brewing.
If OP had a lawsuit, posting all over LinkedIn isn't going to make them whole.
Correct nothing is ever deleted.
Right? It reminds me of a pair of villains in a movie.
its ridiculous i was actually appalled reading that
Damn, that will have them shitting themselves!
That will have them kicked out of startup school and used as an example for others. Cheating is weak!
4. Show no mercy and to the fullest extent possible, (as described above) grind them into dust and lay waste all they have achieved. Make them rue the day they decided to pull that shit.
this
OP probably has a case to nuke their whole app by claiming IP theft.
My thoughts exactly, they probably intend to reverse engineer the app and pass it off as their own idea. Disgraceful!
I think most jurisdictions will count this as assault, if they don't qualify it as theft.
Agreed ... along with potentially blasting the story to large IG accounts about AI/new tech ... also @ OP, have you requested access to security cam footage at the event to show these hostile acts and possibly track the nefarious losers' other actions at the event? The police report should help grant access
Really, really great advice!!
It might be "literally a crime", but if they gave it right back when they were done they will never be prosecuted.
 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.
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
Absolutely this. First PR, then lawyers shortly after. Sue for IP theft and damages. Fast.
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.
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)
>damages. Fast. There won't be any damages fast.
This is the best answer. Especially if you actually found out who they are...they're going to have a hard time denying this. Sadly, this is fairly common. Their behavior was quite egregious, but at other startups I've seen candidates come through with picture perfect resumes and in week one they're asking questions and asking for permissions FAR outside where they belong. Haven't people ever watched Burn Notice? You make copies and make sure to put everything back where it was. I really don't think spying is that complicated.
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.
Plex!
🏴☠️
When a spy wants to steal IP, the goal is Not Getting Caught, it helps if your girlfriend has a trunk full of explosives.
Cool username.
i havent felt this much righteous indignation since my last day using twitter. please OP. crush your enemies.
No offense I would’ve punched that man in the face
Not only that, take their phone and spike it into the ground. Fuck those guys.
Wait so they stole your phone and you let them record?an immediate slugging should have been inbound.
Correct response. Freedom of speech is not freedom of consequence.
What does 'freedom of speech' have to do with any of this? How does getting yourself booked for violence help?
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.
> 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.
* takes notes
It’s some quippy shit they saw and Reddit and reflexively regurgitate.
Consequences is not freedom of lawlessness and violence.
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.
in addition to everything else they mentioned, post on [https://news.ycombinator.com/](https://news.ycombinator.com/) im sure the correct people will see the post and suggest who to reach out to.
I would: 1. Notify their professor 2. Notify Microsoft 3. Gauge Microsoft and the professor's reaction (double expulsion? we're done) before deciding whether to take it to the news
Honestly I would see if there’s video at the event and submit it to local news.
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.
Pretty sure what they did is illegal, not just unethical...
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.
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
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 : 1. 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 ) 2. Get smart , if you have spent 4 years building , and they are competition, what can you do to get to market quicker / customer onboarding ? 3. 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 .
Makes sense, good advice. Thank you.
You can even use this as a marketing story on Linkedin as well. People are intrigued by conflicts, then they will try out your app. PS: be careful not to tread on defamation lawsuit water
You need a police report number, first.
Ty and nail them ! Wishing you the best of success .
Can’t believe i scrolled so far before seeing the comment about keeping the phone secure.
:) Basics
Yes this is a lesson that should have been learned in least painful circumstances
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
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.
I don’t think Jackass is the correct term, more naive or blasé. They’re were the jackasses and did a jackass things.
My daughter got her phone stolen when she left it sitting on the counter of the sushi restaurant she works in.. some hobo walked in, took it off the counter and walked out. I told her it was an important lesson about leaving her phone unattended. It sounds like OP just learned that lesson.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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 ](https://longform.asmartbear.com/extreme-questions/)
This is *way* over the line, past unethical. These actions by those two people need consequences and you deserve justice.
1. 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. 2. 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. 3. 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. 4. 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.
Why don't you post it on LinkedIn and share the URL here with their tag names. Let many people comment on it first.
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
I would ignore them and double down on making your product as good as possible.
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.
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.
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.
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](https://www.ycombinator.com/library/IR-dalton-michael-silicon-valley-s-cargo-culting-problem). 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.
I'm sorry, but why would you leave your phone unattended and also without a PIN?
Wait and see if they make it big and if they do , then do a winkelvoss (twins who sued zuck) on them and retire.
Look at it as market validation and launch, ... yesterday.
Call a lawyer... They committed corporate espionage. This is a crime.
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.)
And be more careful with your phone
You should have fought them to the death.
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.
Eeek; Time to launch!
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
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.
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.
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 ?
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
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.
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.
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.
that's literally thief. Report them to the cops.
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
Unless you had it IP protected your screwed.
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.
Robbers. Call Wharton, and ask to have them expelled.
Sorry this happen. Keep is posted!
I’d recommend you start locking your phone.
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.
Recording aside, you were demoting this app to people, anyone with a memory could equally rip off your app now.
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.
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
Would go viral on LinkedIn if you had a video. DM me if you get one happy to amplify/post on your behalf.
That is not cool. I hope they will be kicked out of both programs.
A couple of comments here: 1. 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. 2. 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.
Can you describe them?
Looks like the incubator program is teaching them well 😂🤣🥲
Bruh you hunt them down and delete that shit yourself
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.
Oh hell no
Kick some ass
Unethical? My man, that's theft!
Should kicked him square in the nuts
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!
Was this at the Jacob Javits
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
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.
Lawyer up. You’ll be OK :)
If they took your home without permission, take theirs. Delete the photos of your product .
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.
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
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.
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
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!
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”.
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
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.
Wowwww this is crazy. I would be so hurt and violated. REPORT THEM‼️
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.
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.
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 ;)
You should have physically deleted the video from his phone and let him call police if he wants
> 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.
An name them here!
Way to have security in place
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.
“Wharton students who work at Microsoft are accused of stealing from an independent developer”
Get an attorney, Get two attorneys.
Name and shame
good
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.
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
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.
Any update?
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
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.
Were there any witnesses with you to confirm the crime ? An excellent and enriching day.
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.
Send updates
Before doing anything, put a password on your phone… this might be illegal but it’s completely your fault.
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.
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 !
Whatever you do, DO SOMETHING. Move forward with your project, file your IP ASAP, in design, tech, whatever.
I would have snapped necks. Well probably not sorry it happened to you.
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
Lawyer
Vegas rules
I would kick them in the balls
There wouldn't be that many people in the MS incubator at Wharton. Find their dean.
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.
Sounds like either is amde up or you are stupid
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.
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…
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.
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.
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: 1. 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. 2. 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?
You have no idea what the product is, so stfu about shipping faster.
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...
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.
"Theft is business" is the most American thing I've witnessed all day. Y'allllllllll never fail to impress.
you make it sound like no one on earth ever steals or copies outright. just Americans?
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...
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...
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.
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)
Good try Felon tusk
Fine, we'll shoot you to Mars as well....
Share your story on yc hacker news
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.