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100% truth here. I was working with a client rolling out a new offering circa 2007. Client was a top-tier player in his field and was our premier client. We p

100% truth here. I was working with a client rolling out a new offering circa 2007. Client was a top-tier player in his field and was our premier client. We presented our rollout together at a conference. We met to deepen the relationship and talked about new features and launching another initiative. Then, he stopped returning my calls. No more emails, calls rolling to voicemail. I was distraught and depressed and so was my partner, we didn't know what went wrong and eventually wrote it off as a misunderstanding. I had forgotten about it and met with someone else in the industry a few months later about how to take what we were doing to the next level. In her research, our colleague another company offering our exact same product, and the company was winning industry awards for the concept. It was lead by my ex-client, who had deep pockets. Things unraveled after that, heart ripped out of chest. Ultimately, the niche this lived in was short-lived and didn't grow much as a market, but it still was a painful lesson.

deleted 11y ago
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nostrademons 11y ago
I think your last sentence may be the ultimate lesson here. It may have been a painful lesson, but it didn't materially affect your success. People steal each others' ideas all the time in business. However, it seems like it's mostly folks fighting over the dregs; things are vicious and cutthroat, but they're vicious and cutthroat over things that are ultimately inconsequential. I suspect this is because of something Paul Graham's noted in a few of his essays: "Good ideas look like bad ideas". Or as I've heard elsewhere: "Don't worry about people trying to steal your ideas; if your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down peoples' throats." If your idea is obvious enough that anyone else thinks it's a good idea, it's probably been independently discovered a dozen times and any profit will get competed away. The ideas that become world-changing are those where everyone actively thinks they're bad ideas, and stays away because they couldn't possibly work.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

nostrademons 11y ago

I think your last sentence may be the ultimate lesson here. It may have been a painful lesson, but it didn't materially affect your success. People steal each others' ideas all the time in business. However, it seems like it's mostly folks fighting over the dregs; things are vicious and cutthroat, but they're vicious and cutthroat over things that are ultimately inconsequential. I suspect this is because of something Paul Graham's noted in a few of his essays: "Good ideas look like bad ideas". Or as I've heard elsewhere: "Don't worry about people trying to steal your ideas; if your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down peoples' throats." If your idea is obvious enough that anyone else thinks it's a good idea, it's probably been independently discovered a dozen times and any profit will get competed away. The ideas that become world-changing are those where everyone actively thinks they're bad ideas, and stays away because they couldn't possibly work.