Big competing startup CEO dissing my launch post on HackerNews (happening now)

by Kai (Jiabo) Feng

So I made a launch post about our budding startup on HackerNews and it attracted this competing startup CEO to try and diss our company and market their own solutions...

Here's the launch post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30375206
(His response was downvoted and is at the bottom due to aggressive self-promotion, scroll down and you'll find it)

Gotta say, it was quite an intense experience! I hope you don't have to experience this yourself, but if you do, maybe my experience will help you.

I do hope startup founders can all support each other more and have friendly competition - most startups die of not building something valuable, not because of competition.

Kai (Jiabo) Feng

on February 17, 2022

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5

He is doing you a favor, commenting and attracting interest to your post
And he is the one that looks inappropriate in this situation.

Congrats on the launch!

kandruszkow

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5 years ago
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  +1 maybe you can turn this into a viral controversy and get more attention for your startup!
  
  dennislibre
  
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  5 years ago
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  Agreed, if somebody has time to put attention on dissing the post means he is not focusing the right things. Take this as an example and next time your competitor launches, say "congrats and LFG!"
  
  Companies don't die because of competition, remember that...
  
  Also my 2 cents:
  
  P.S. As founders we are all bit scared about competition, I understand. At 1Flow, we've tried our best to focus on actually delivering value to our users.
  AirBnB wasn't the first home sharing site
  Stripe wasn't the first payment platform
  Facebook wasn't the first social network
  
  What really matters at the end of the day is finding product market fit and execute well.. This is just my 2 cents.
  
  This sounds slightly apologetic and explanatory. Quite frankly - you don't have to justify your launch to anyone except for your customers. You don't need to play that card. Stand still and keep going.
  
  Unrelated question:
  
  Why did you decide to join YC? @kai_jiabo_feng
  
  kirso
  
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  5 years ago
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    Haha I love that, "congrats and LFG!"
    
    Yeah frankly I applied to YC because I wanted that stamp of approval.
    I joined YC with 1Flow because when I got in, I asked friends who've done it to see if it is worth giving up 7% of my company. Everyone who knows it well (either participated or invested in YC companies) told me to do it, it's worth it. So I did.
    Right now it is half way through the batch and I am so glad I made the right choice. The mentorship, network and resources accelerated our progress by months and changed the trajectory of our startup.
    
    Kai (Jiabo) Feng
    
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    5 years ago
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      Thats great, I guess my personal philosophy is that if you see this going big and you want to give it your all, you should definitely try to raise and put some fuel on it.
      
      The tricky part is the bridge between seed / series-A where the metrics is what matters. But wish you all the best luck and fortune!
      
      kirso
      
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      5 years ago
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        Thanks so much! 💪
        The same to you!
        
        Kai (Jiabo) Feng
        
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        5 years ago
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      Impressive you got in as a single founder! Did you have some kind of prior stamp of approval like Ivy League school, or job at Google?
      
      SquishyCoder
      
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      5 years ago
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        I was an indie developer for a few years before this current company that I applied with, so no fancy jobs.
        I did go to a tech-oriented school on the west coast, but not Ivy.
        
        Kai (Jiabo) Feng
        
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        5 years ago
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        Thank you… very encouraging!
        
        SquishyCoder
        
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        5 years ago
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  +1 you handled it so well!
  
  allison_m
  
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  5 years ago
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  Thank you for the encouragement 🙏
  
  Kai (Jiabo) Feng
  
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  5 years ago
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Ah, these things keep happening. As much as we wish people were nicer, business does bring out the more competitive side in many.

Ignore the skeptics. You know you're doing something right when they come at you like this. Great launch post and a good job responding to the comment.

I like what 1Flow is doing. Your hypothesis is valid, I work at a start-up and I've felt these pains first hand. All the best!

rushabh

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5 years ago
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  Thanks for your kind support. I really appreciate it - today's been a long day trying to stay online and interact with people during launch, and I was glad to see most people were supportive and gave good feedback / cool ideas!
  
  Kai (Jiabo) Feng
  
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  5 years ago
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EDIT: (nvm, thought this was a new thread but I commented here months ago)

SquishyCoder

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4 years ago
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Thanks for sharing your experience and I'm glad that the algo/mods & karma put them in their place. Good luck!

heidif

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5 years ago
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That Founder are HN since 2010! Maybe, he just spamming every other post on HN. :)

AtulGhorpade

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5 years ago
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That was such a weird, passive aggressive comment by him. Glad to see you handle it with class and rooting for your success!

cld7

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5 years ago
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Congrats on your launch!

I wouldn't even notice such people haha :)) it's actually a good sign because it means he considers you as a serious player :)

I wonder what is "Launch HN" - never heard about it before (only know "Show HN").

SeaCat

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5 years ago
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  Thank you :)
  
  "Launch HN" is usually when a YC company launches on HN.
  
  Kai (Jiabo) Feng
  
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  5 years ago
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    Thanks, what do you mean by "YC company launches on HN"? Have you graduated from their accelerator or what?
    
    SeaCat
    
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    5 years ago
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      We are in the current YC batch so not yet graduated - but in a few weeks (!!!)
      
      Kai (Jiabo) Feng
      
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      5 years ago
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        Does it mean they will invest in you? (Congrats anyway!)
        
        SeaCat
        
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        5 years ago
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I was really hoping to read some name calling and talking crap about each others products and moms but It was too civilized...boo. =D

But if you are getting hate, it means that you are doing something right. So nice work! Also good luck with 1flow.

dot_michael

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5 years ago
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This comment was deleted 4 years ago

DeletedUser

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5 years ago