startup-costs, copyright, trademark, incorporation, sole-proprietorshipThis is a lot of different questions so I hope someone is patient :( and in a helpful mood. Aside from kicking around a couple idea’s that I’ve actually spoken to some investors about I developed more questions than answers and I didn’t want to post these questions to them and reveal my lack of understanding.
You’ve been working on some software, or online service you want to make live. What should you have done IP wise before hand? Let me ask this way, I’m almost done reading the book about the creation of Twitter (There inspiring to me, finished Elon Musk’s biography last week was a great read) What did they do, if anything to help ensure another group of people didn’t just duplicate the exact same thing when they only had 50 users for example? Or could they have even done anything? I’m guessing they could only protect there name but the act of the microblog post was not protect able? Did places like Twitter and Facebook just get lucky that they got big quick and became the norm so fast that duplicating it would just be a waste? And as a nobody service with no profit are your registering your new service as a business? Did Twitter Incorporate in the beginning? Did they Partnership? Or do nothing?
And secondly, I’m used to the simple creating of startups like Bob decides he wants to sell Bob’s Coffee. He registers his business as Bob’s Company Inc. And protects Bob’s Coffee. It seems today however that there isn’t really a company name that then sells a product name. The product and company are the same. So using my Twitter example above, the name of the service was Twitter, and that then is also the name of your company. Do you register Twitter as a business, trademark and copyright the name? Is the service itself now patent?
Sometimes I find it hard to look at certain things as a business. For instance when Google just started, it was just a little search engine. It often amazes me that they got all these investors and that it became what it is. If I saw a little search engine I’d think most people would say “Oh, ok thats a nice website” Who would want to give a website that just looks things up for you money? How is THAT a “business”? So its hard for me to know what idea’s are businesses and what ideas needs registered and how.
If some of you had to do it all over again and you created an online service today, say people could sign up and post pictures (Instagram), you and you online worked on it at night after your 9-5 and it functioned and was ready to be used by other’s. And that’s it, no registering of any kind for anything has taken place. What is your next list of things to do?
This is a lot of questions and ranting I know, I’m all over the place. I always am but I’ve had these questions building for the past 4 months and I’ve had no one to ask. I just accidentally saw that StackExchange had a startup’s section.
As some of the others have said, don’t over-think this. It is hard to really protect much without spending money. Its also unlikely that you will have anything really special which justifies spending a lot of money. In essence, there are I think three areas which you can protect.
1) Your work - this is loosely covered by copyright, so if you write some documents, noone can simply copy it word for word.
2) Your brand - this can be the name, logos, etc. This is harder to protect, and comes under the scope of registered designs and trade-marks. There may be some implicit protection (people can’t lie to pretend to be you), but generally you need to be specific about protecting this. Until you have presence, this is maybe less important.
3) Your ideas - This is something you can either keep secret, publish, or patent (but patents are not cheap). If you publish in the right way, you have some defence against someone else trying to patent your own work. Frequently, patents resolve around small details which make a product possible - but generally apply to machines rather than processes. Patents are best at stopping direct copies, rather than keeping control of a market.
If you look at these, actually none stop someone else being better at doing whay you want to do. Make sure you have formal agreements about ideas you discuss with people (which set out your claim to an idea before you discuss it), and put more effort into delivering.
I’m not an expert, but if you look at DropBox and Google Drive, Tindr and Hot or not, etc. All of these are product that have the same exact principle. Your idea will always be just an idea. The only way to make sure and to protect your project from someone stealing it is to make it so good that nothing else will be able to compete.
As long as you haven’t produced anything, your idea is like a fish in a kids pool. Meaning it’s really easy to grab. As a technical point of view I think, correct me if I’m wrong, but the only thing you can really trademark is your company’s name, the logo of that said company and to register your domain name. I don’t know where you live, but here in Canada there is not much that protect inventor like you and me from getting their apps (ideas) stolen.
Don’t wait, start coding make it the best as possible and if you make it good enough, no one will ever even try to copy it. How stupid would it be to make another Facebook thinking it would beat it? You get the point.
Again I’m not an expert. This is just what I think. I have been asking myselfe the same question for years now and if anyone could give a professional answer…that would be greate.
EDIT
You should trademark your name and all. As explained in my answer these are the only think you can realy make sur that no one will be able to steal. Go get your domain name first if you don’t have alot of money to trademark the name. Having the domaine (.com) will discourage most of people trying to use this name for their compagnie. Then if you have the money trademark the name and the logo if you have one.
P-S: Sorry for my bad English (French Canadian)
TL;DR: stop wasting your time procrastinating and overthinking IP considerations. Get in front of your future user base. What counts is execution. Do something new or better. Worry about IP later.
Sometimes I find it hard to look at certain things as a business. For instance when Google just started, it was just a little search engine. It often amazes me that they got all these investors and that it became what it is. If I saw a little search engine I’d think most people would say “Oh, ok thats a nice website” Who would want to give a website that just looks things up for you money? How is THAT a “business”? So its hard for me to know what idea’s are businesses and what ideas needs registered and how.
You’re probably too young to remember how miserable things were with earlier search engines and (the big thing in Yahoo’s old days) manually edited/curated internet directories. Google was a massive improvement in search relevance over all of their competitors. Even without a hint of a business model they still had something to sell - and indeed, they tried.
More generally speaking, don’t overthink IP protection. Build something that users provably want by doing so hand in hand with actual users. Then get more similar users (aka get market share) and explore ways to cater to other types of users with the same or slightly similar. Money will follow. With it you’ll be able to afford an attorney who will worry about IP loose ends if you still deem it necessary by then. (IMO it’s not at all, but take that with a grain of salt because I only ever work with open source stuff and I live in the EU.)
What did they do, if anything to help ensure another group of people didn’t just duplicate the exact same thing when they only had 50 users for example?
In essence: nothing IP related. Ideas are a dime a dozen. You’re utterly wasting your time trying to protect your ideas before having any kind of proven market. Proven means two things: a) a customer is writing you a check; and b) you know how you’ll get your next customer.
What counts is execution. They focused on building a product that offered a repeatable way to attract new users (and when needed on finding seed money to see it through).
Did places like Twitter and Facebook just get lucky that they got big quick and became the norm so fast that duplicating it would just be a waste?
In part, yes. And they raised money to grow much faster than they could have done organically.
But keep in mind it’s not enough: being first doesn’t guarantee you’ll stay first or even survive. Execution is everything. Remember the time when Blackberry and Nokia were laughing at the iPhone? What ultimately counts is making (and in this case, shipping in high enough numbers) something people want to use (and pay for, if those users aren’t the product).
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