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Amazon announced a copycat of us pretty quickly after we went through YC. I suspect it’s not some sinister top-down thing (unless they are actually reading all
by seizethecheese 6y ago
Amazon announced a copycat of us pretty quickly after we went through YC. I suspect it’s not some sinister top-down thing (unless they are actually reading all YC company descriptions). Most likely, the copycats are ambitious, unoriginal PMs pitching some budget.
We facilitate subscriptions using a smart scale, and it works way better than a Dash button (Bottomless.com, YC W19). I’m actually surprised they haven’t launched yet and are taking so long.
It’s pretty wild, the hardware on their launch page is exactly like ours, only they're so slow that it’s a copy of two versions ago and hasn’t even hit the market.
- 2sk21 6y agoIndeed, as a startup you do typically have a speed advantage!
- seizethecheese 6y agoHardware is hard for startups though.
- pyrrhotech 6y agoThere's nothing sinister about a copycat. It just feels that way selfishly for the original creator. Capitalism works best in the long run with near perfect competition, copy cats are great for everyone except the first guy with the idea.
- RhodesianHunter 6y ago> Capitalism works best in the long run with near perfect competition Unfortunately someone like Amazon using their size and market power to produce copycats is the opposite of perfect competition since they can operate at a loss or at cost and starve out any newcomers.
- pyrrh0tech 6y agoHey it's me pyrrhotech, and upon some additional reflection decided that I was wrong and maybe there are some issues with copycats. Just wasn't thinking straight before.
- DetroitThrow 6y agoAhaha. @dang, this is the issue with allowing unverified throwaways. Speaking of that, I'd be happy to verify my location if you'd be interested!
- stepstop 6y agoThe fake’s username shows up in green is a sufficient flag. What more do you want? I like the unverified functionality
- gottebp 6y agoThis is a really clever joke. The OP did say "There's nothing sinister about a copycat."
- throwaway-cdo 6y agoThrowaway to avoid being ID'd. I was on the team that was peripherally involved in building the Amazon Dash collection of products. The scale idea has been floating around within the company since 2015/2016. It takes long to do this at scale and a cost-effective point. There were also other similar products that were scrapped because there was no way we could sell them at a reasonable price.
- seizethecheese 6y agoInteresting! The scale concept is obvious so I thought the timing of actually moving forward with it somewhat suspect. Fascinating intel.
- matthewmcg 6y agoTry saying this one three times fast: Smart Sally in Sales scales sales from a smart scale.
- schwartzworld 6y agoPeggy Babcock Peggy Babcock Peggy Babcock
- mrandish 6y ago> "The scale idea has been floating around within the company since 2015/2016." So much this. As a former startup founder now acquired into a Top 10 valley tech company, few people understand just how many nascent projects, features and ideas a huge, successful tech company has in development. At least for our active product domains, I never saw a feature from a competitive product that we didn't already have on a list and usually in development somewhere. When I first started, I would sometimes see a "neato" new feature publicly demoed in some competing product and bring it to the relevant PM's attention, only to be sent back a two-year-old internal video of a similar feature already working and either queued for shipping, dropped in market testing due to weak response or deferred to the "next version" queue due to resource prioritization.
- mritchie712 6y agowhat launch page, this? https://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=20657644011 https://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=20657644011 It might not be hitting market due to lack of interest. The way I "solve" this today is to just send myself an email when I think I need to order something, then order it next time I check my email... works pretty good.
- relaxing 6y agoOf course they’re reading the new startup descriptions. That’s the sort of market research due diligence that’s expected of any PM. They fly in startups for presentations to get a glimpse into their inner workings, you think they aren’t taking the time to read about what everyone’s doing first?
- seizethecheese 6y agoWell, no I didn’t think they were doing that much research on startups. Do you know this from experience?
- oblio 6y agoAll these big companies buy startups periodically, did you think they just roll dice to choose them, before the acquisition? :-)
- billmalarky 6y agoNeat idea. I had the same thoughts a while back around a toilet paper tower/holder ("never run out of TP again"). It's a fun concept.
- seizethecheese 6y agoThanks! Yeah, we thought about doing TP first with a smart roll holder. Coffee is a better e-commerce product. We will do TP eventually!