Gyroscopic Investing

Your brilliant Kickstarter idea could be on sale in China before you’ve even finished funding it
http://qz.com/771727/chinas-factories-i ... t-over-it/

dualstow wrote:Your brilliant Kickstarter idea could be on sale in China before you’ve even finished funding it
http://qz.com/771727/chinas-factories-i ... t-over-it/

It's really hard to know whether to applaud or cry. I'm sure it wasn't that much different during the Industrial Revolution except for the patents.

MachineGhost wrote:It's really hard to know whether to applaud or cry. I'm sure it wasn't that much different during the Industrial Revolution except for the patents.

I have read about the United States ripping off Britain's textile patterns when it was a young nation.
What's different here is that you put your idea out there and it can be ripped off before you start.

I don't know if that happened during the Industrial Revolution? Do you have examples?

I've seen this first hand. Factory owners in China simply have no real concept of intellectual property for either products or brands. They're born and raised in a Communist country, so I'm not sure why anyone would expect any different. The predominant mindset is far more opportunistic than entrepreneurial.

The only real defense is to include a feature that is difficult to manufacture without certain expertise, work really fast to be first to market, and keep innovating so that you can move on to the next product by the time people catch up to your last one.

Tyler wrote:The only real defense is to include a feature that is difficult to manufacture without certain expertise, work really fast to be first to market, and keep innovating so that you can move on to the next product by the time people catch up to your last one.

Yeah, I was daydreaming about engineers including features that weren't announced in the first place, but that's not practical and it would be copied in the next iteration of the shanzai product.

Ideas for these one-and-done fad products like the stikbox which require no future versions or innovations are basically ruined.

This guy needs to add a new chapter to his book.

FIFY
-- TPG

dualstow wrote: Yeah, I was daydreaming about engineers including features that weren't announced in the first place, but that's not practical and it would be copied in the next iteration of the shanzai product.

There's a healthy market in China for product data before the product is released or even announced. It's not just to knock off the product but to get a head start on accessories. Interestingly, I've seen multiple conflicting engineering drawings from different vendors for the same rumored product release. You never really know if the vendors are simply making stuff up to get business, but I've always suspected that large companies deliberately leak conflicting data to discourage people from the early knockoff game.

Interesting! That would be brilliant.