Being Copied (Paul Graham), Teery Gold , Bixee Blog

Being Copied (Paul Graham): ...a startup founder who worried about competitors copying his idea. Was it worth starting a startup when competitors could easily copy him?

The answer in such cases is almost always yes. Startups worry far too much about people copying them.

First of all, it will take competitors a long time to realize that your idea is even a good thing to do. It seems obvious to you that your idea is good. You had it. Other people will take longer to see that.

Especially big companies-- as anyone can attest who has tried to convince a big company of something obvious. Often big companies don't want to see that an idea is good, because they already have a lot invested in some other plan.

Even when competitors realize your idea is good, (a) it will take them a long time to implement and (b) they'll probably screw up critical things.

And finally, working on your ideas will lead you on to new ideas. So you'll be a moving target; by the time competitors copy what you're doing now, you'll be doing more.

As a rule, startups shouldn't worry so much about competitors, especially big companies. Competitors are a second-order problem. Startups should worry more about making something worth copying and less about whether someone will.

Worry most about how to make something people want. If you're building anything good enough to copy, you're way ahead."

terrygold.com: Entrepreneurship: "The real fear doesn't come from starting your company. It comes later when you are running your company."

Well said there ,by the multi faceted Terry Gold ,nice to go through his post on entrepreneurship faqs ,and the stories regarding his own startup .

Bixee Blog » Seed funding is pointless?: "Thinking about all this, I dont see why there are not many times more “college entrepreneurs” targeting the internet space from India than from the US. Actually, who knows, college grads from the US might start coming to India to setup companies because it is much cheaper here.

The only reason I can see for seed funding for an internet company is if the equipment or bandwidth costs are very high. This holds if you are doing something like Google or Meebo. There are two other caveats I have heard from folks"