Stealing ideas - is it ethical ?

An idea is worth absolutely nothing.

I was having an interesting conversation with a friend recently and we were wondering how musicians handle plagiarism.

Say you create a song and you're convinced it's unique - it sounds unlike anything you've ever heard.

How do you know it's truly unique and therefore not plagiarism?

Do you put your song in a global database of all songs on the planet and compare it? Are you asked to listen to all 2B songs ever created by man to make this comparison yourself? What if it sounds like 75% of one song, is that plagiarism?

It's unclear and debatable, at best.

I think the real answer is that humans are absolutely incapable of thinking at such a large scale and therefore, are not asked or even expected to hold their creations to such scrutiny.

Copy Apple. Copy Google. Copy other IH members. The reality is that if all you're doing is copying, you're not learning the most important lesson which is to focus on making something your clients actually care about.

Your job is to bring about improvements in the condition of your clients.

If copying or flat out stealing from others helps your positioning, go for it. But I doubt it will. These things have a knack for getting known and leaving sour tastes in client's mouths.

There's only one Coca-Cola. Be the Coca-Cola.

If you and me would start the exact same thing now I am a 100% sure two different businesses will come out in the end. They might share the same business or financial model but it will be obviously different.

To answer your question; I think it is ethical as long as you don't copy execution.

Passing it off as your own is plagiarism, but building out an existing idea to make it even better is the epitome of someone else's short comings. If you see something you like and it inspires you to do it better then go for it. If you see something you like and simply want to make it yours then you are crossing ethical bounds. As to "not reinvent the wheel", give credit to those who created the idea you want to steal.

In my opinion, there's a gray area...

My company, softwareideas.io, exists because we do market research on existing markets (existing companies). I look at what customers love about particular products, what they are complaining about, and many other factors to help understand the motion of that market.

That being said, I think stealing is both unethical and an inefficient way to start a successful company. It brings on the wrong mindset. Why would you enter an industry where you think that the best you can do is be a rip-off of another company? I think you should only enter a market if you think you have an angle that sets you apart.

Otherwise, you're entering into a race to the bottom.

There is no big deal copying an idea. Infact if nobody copies someone else's idea you will be stuck with a monopoly industry. Imagine having 1 single brand of mobile phone, 1 ISP, 1 email service and the list goes on. There is nothing wrong is copying an idea.

I would first analyze if there is something that I am really interested in and can that thing make money. If I am not interested in an eCommerce business, I will never copy that idea.

Steal but don't copy.

Today I was short of tweet ideas for a new twitter account; so copied the templates of the first 20 tweets of an account I enjoy following. It helped.

Earlier used a cold email template which was posted here in Indiehackers and used it for getting product feedback. It worked.

If something works then it's okay to not reinvent the wheel and copy the 'essence' of it.

Yes very nice post I agree with your thoughts I am also working on a very interesting idea here on steak knives blog you can see here.

ideas are useless, most probably your idea is inspired directly/indirectly by someone elses idea, even if you don't remember.

If we can't compete, we deserve to die. Ideas aren't worth anything, execution is.

There are few truly unique ideas in this world. 'Steal' ideas from several incumbents and you'll naturally create a unique cocktail in your vertical.
i.e. I like this and that from Apple but also like X and Y from Google and mixed together it's uniquely yours. Use the FB ad library to check out competitors ads. It's stupid to not 'steal' in this case since they've already spent thousands or millions of dollars testing what's working and can help set direction for your own. 'Steal' what you LOVE from multiple companies and you'll create a powerful unique mix

If you would open a cafe, would you say you "stole" the idea from Starbucks?

What if you "copied" some of the things you like at your favourite cafe, like comfortable chairs and mellow music? Would that be ethical, instead of coming up with your own original concept?

I think I would say that the idea is a multiplier. The execution matters once multiplied by the right idea. So as the idea approaches zero value, then all the execution in the world doesn't matter. Which is much like saying a product fit, or viable market of zero size, is building the wrong idea no matter how well it was executed.

Therefor without execution, which is to say when execution is zero, the same is true about the idea alone: it's not worth anything without some form of execution.

Also, I'd add one idea alone isn't how anything is executed. During execution many ideas are brought to the table and decided upon. Why is the high-level idea worth any more than all the thousands of ideas used to create a product? Some of those intermediate ideas have a multiplier value as well, which is how an internal tool can become an off-shoot business.

Ethically, all art is derived. All ideas as well.

(1) Yeah an idea is empty by itself - more startups fail at this stage than we could ever document.
(2) If you're constantly imitating someone else, you'll never really catch up or develop an edge.
(3) The moment you begin interacting with customers to get niche insights to develop your own product roadmap, you'll either:
a. deviate from the product you initially began imitating - at which point you're a brand new product. or;
b. see they are doing everything perfectly and you're your wasting time.

Every new idea is in some sense an incremental step forward on a pre-existing product. The earlier you develop niche, insights on a broken industry, the bigger the step forward, and the less relevant the initial idea that you took in the first place.

What separates ideas:

• People
• Execution
• Culture

Think Google Meet, Skype, Zoom etc

Now there’re over 100 variations (https://virtualmojito.com/) don’t you think they steal from each other?

Maybe

But do you see their execution is very different

Possibly

Some companies are even managed to outperform first movers

To turn an idea into a viable business requires a lot of commitment. Coming up an idea is just costs a fraction amount of energy and luck

Celebrate success not ideas :)

Technically there's nothing wrong with copying an idea. Pretty much all my ideas were inspired by existing companies (I always say my next thing is going to be totally original but alas.)

[1] The most important advice I can give you is do not copy their marketing page design in any way. It sometimes can be hard not to, but even for your site's information architecture, I recommend avoiding any launching off points by looking at their site. It's typically the most ammo they can get if they start finger-pointing.

[2] Yield some caution in how you go after their customers. There's nothing inherently wrong with trying to convert their customers to yours, but I would yield some caution before going hard after their users. Maybe ease into it.

Tons of successful businesses have started due to a company or sector remaining stagnant in terms of innovation. Having proprietary features or tech is a moat that will keep competitors at bay. If they don't have either of those things, then its an issue they will always have to deal with.

Also funny, I saw a Reddit post about Indiehackers and people's unwillingness to share their true company metrics. While the transparency here seems to foster a richer community, one drawback is that it does make people take a harder look at what you're doing when they see how well you're doing, especially in these niche / esoteric spaces. Inversely it does also increase awareness for your company and get you more customers and build up your personal brand.

We've all seen Nomad List lately and the splashy headlines around their MRR. While some might think why would he reveal to his competitors how much he makes(!), it also has likely a positive net gain of new customers and users.

In my experience, an idea is just a starting point. Once I get started on something, my mind tends to wander and I think about all of the different improvements I can do to make it better - and sometimes the finished product doesn't even resemble the initial idea.

Competition means validation, and I think that's good. If you're doing something remotely close to someone then that either means you're first to market or there is no market, and the odds are you're in the later camp.