I got duped: Guy called me, spoke a big game, days later launches a competitor

Hey all,

It's been such good vibes this week. My product is going crazy, amazing organic engagement etc. I'm self funding my product, I don't have a lot but I'm giving this my all. I've put all my time, effort and money into the company, and God bless it is working out. However, I had an email from someone asking if we had an API a few weeks ago. I got on a phone call with him last week. Being an inexperienced founder I didn't make them sign any documents before the call.

They talked a huge game about "giving us a ton of volume" etc. Naturally we were excited for a huge potential client. I was careful not to show/give code, or our secret sauce but I gave some 'tips' of best use for our API. A few days later after I sent some emails following up, I see he has secretly launched a competing company.

I'm not too worried, he has a bigger team, way more money but we have organic buy in, price points are also way better as well. But I feel disgusted, snaked, betrayed etc. For reference, I currently help out competitors in my space. I have a great relationship with all of them and give them recommendations. I'm scared of competition, and I'm not against helping out people against me. But pulling snake, weasel tactics like this just really gets to me.

I haven't called them out publicly and don't intend to. I'm not sure what to do exactly, I'm looking for some suggestions or wisdom here and basically venting about getting a little fooled. Any words of wisdom would be nice. I know its a cut throat business world out here. Everyone is trying to make a buck, and I can't expect everyone to be angels but man...this really killed my vibe. If anything else let me know your thoughts.

Cheers...keep your head up and stay building. To any new builders make a mutual NDA, be aware snakes like this exist EVERYWHERE. I had only gotten on a total of about 5 calls with my business, and this was one of them. Protect yourselves and your product. I will keep moving forward.