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If the law firm had been trying to screw you over, they wouldn't have told you about the trademark conflict. But they told you. Are you blaming them that you ig

If the law firm had been trying to screw you over, they wouldn't have told you about the trademark conflict. But they told you. Are you blaming them that you ignored the advice? Do your homework. Choose deliberately the VCs you pitch, review their portfolio. Check if a name is already trademarked. VCs are likely to share information learned, although they usually "anonymize" the facts. They're more likely to share market insights than product features. And when they do it, they _feel_ like they are sharing their general learnings, not sharing your secrets. Factor that into your planning. But, startups are usually too busy to use suggestions that come in from VCs. I've never heard of a startup taking a new business strategy from a law firm. Nor have I ever had a law firm share sensitive information about another client with me, and I've spent thousands of hours working with different Silicon Valley lawyers over the last 20 years.

taejo 14y ago
> If the law firm had been trying to screw you over, they wouldn't have told you about the trademark conflict. But they told you. Are you blaming them that you ignored the advice? > founders are assured by law firms and VCs it's no big deal. The problem is exactly that they took the advice. Without supposed experts telling them it wasn't a problem, they would probably have changed the name.
beachstartup 14y ago
> Are you blaming them that you ignored the advice? uh, their advice was to NOT change the name, which could be interpreted as a) they wanted us to not lose momentum or b) they wanted to set a trap for us in the future probably all of the above. you probably skipped more than just a couple lines of my story if you didn't even catch that little detail. read it again, the style is casual but it's fairly fact-dense. i wasn't the CEO, i was just a kid. i probably would have changed the name. and it might shock you to learn VCs/lawyers deal with different people differently. you look like an oldconnectedwhiteguy from your linkedin profile.

taejo 14y ago

> If the law firm had been trying to screw you over, they wouldn't have told you about the trademark conflict. But they told you. Are you blaming them that you ignored the advice? > founders are assured by law firms and VCs it's no big deal. The problem is exactly that they took the advice. Without supposed experts telling them it wasn't a problem, they would probably have changed the name.

beachstartup 14y ago

> Are you blaming them that you ignored the advice? uh, their advice was to NOT change the name, which could be interpreted as a) they wanted us to not lose momentum or b) they wanted to set a trap for us in the future probably all of the above. you probably skipped more than just a couple lines of my story if you didn't even catch that little detail. read it again, the style is casual but it's fairly fact-dense. i wasn't the CEO, i was just a kid. i probably would have changed the name. and it might shock you to learn VCs/lawyers deal with different people differently. you look like an oldconnectedwhiteguy from your linkedin profile.