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How Foursquare bought my domain to steal my idea
- yid 13y agoI'm sure you're hurting and upset, and I do sympathize, but I don't think you have a leg to stand on. At multiple junctures, you sold assets related to your app, which suggests to me that it was a half-hearted effort, even though you had a coming soon page. There are no unwritten codes in business; only written ones, and sometimes a bigger dog comes in and steals the show.
- trevelyan 13y agoBaffles me he is surprised that the buyer of his domain would be building a swarming app.
- dnlserrano 13y agoI was going to back @yid on his comment, but then I saw the "First batch of app designs are complete"... OMG, this is a complete rip-off. How can we be sure it was you who designed those mockups? Sorry, but it just seems unbelievably strange that a company like Foursquare would act in this way.
- calcsam 13y agoI've begun to notice that if someone is complaining that another company stole their idea, they're usually nontechnical -- business, design, etc.
- lazylizard 13y agohey, at least swarmly shipped it already..http://techcrunch.com/2014/05/02/foursquare-swarms-over-swarmly/ http://techcrunch.com/2014/05/02/foursquare-swarms-over-swar...
- zaidf 13y agoThe irony in this whole thing is that people like the OP are precisely why NDAs should not be signed. When you are a company like foursquare, ideas like swarm arise naturally from product evolution. Sure, you may have had the same idea 4 years ago but 4 years ago, it could have been a terrible idea. This brings me to my second point: OP is highly underestimating the importance of timing. It's akin to someone telling you everyday that you need to get treated for cancer; and then years later when you do get cancer, claiming he was right all along.
- hashtag 13y agoA few thoughts... 1. As yid said, it appears that this has been a half-hearted attempt, or certainly looks that way from an outside perspective. It should not have taken you 4 years to execute this idea, and even then, it doesn't appear to have been launched even now. 2. Execution is what matters at the end of the day. Those things said, I do genuinely sympathize. It sucks when someone takes your idea and steals it. Worse if you know that person. But it won't be the thing that hinders you from success. Now, with all of that out of the way, its insane how similar the logo and mockups are on your site is to theirs. Its almost blatantly stealing assets and beyond if true, not just an idea. That is incredibly bad.
- duked 13y agoAnyone know which font was used to design the Swarm text that appears on the iphone screen here: http://seantaylor.co/websites/swarmapp/old/ http://seantaylor.co/websites/swarmapp/old/ ?