What do you do when someone copies your invention and claims it as their own? Who would do something like that? I am sorry to say that that might be a longer list than you would like.

My name is Bill Strand and you are listening to the Reptile Entrepreneur Podcast where we talk about the ins and outs of starting a business in the reptile world or any niche community.

Today’s episode was long time coming, but came to a head when a young entrepreneur I follow posted on Instagram a dilemma. He was loving sharing everything he was doing with his audience, but is going through the experience of people simply copying what he does and calling it their own. So, in a world where we bring people along with us where ever we eat, vacation, or work, where is the line? How can you share what you are doing if it is just feeding the copiers?

We are going to explore that today. As someone who has a long history of innovating and then being copied I am sorry to say I am more than qualified to write this episode.

Ideas are cheap. They are dime a dozen. Everyone has them. What is rare is execution of an idea. Especially a new idea. Not only do you have to figure out how to design it, you have to figure out how to manufacture it, and then you have to figure out how to market it to the right people. That is an awful amount of work it takes after that idea popped into your head to the point where the product is finally accepted and you start seeing some return on your time and money investment. Once you prove it is a good product and create a market, then it is time for the parasites to jump on.

There is a popular saying in the world of parasitology by, I believe, the biologist Thomas Ray. He said “all successful systems attract parasites”. Once all the hard work is done, you will have people decide they would like some of that success as well. So, do they work hard to figure out a need in the community and invest their time and resources into proving the idea out, manufacturing, and marketing? Yikes, sounds like a lot of work. No, they will just take your idea, copy your hard work, jump into the same customer group, and talk as though they came up with the idea in the first place.

If you create something of your idea, the parasites will come. I do not know of anyway to avoid having to deal with them. Now, the first thing that may come to your mind is a patent. They can’t copy what you have if you have a patent, right? Unfortunately, a patent doesn’t stop them from copying your idea. It gives you the means to stop them from continuing to sell your idea. I hate to tell you that they will still copy your idea and call it their own, until you stop them. It is like playing whack-a-mole. I have a patent on one of my inventions. I am routinely telling people who copy the design that they have to stop. And, yes, I have a high powered patent attorney to back me up when they inevitably bluff and bluster. Ironically, one of the people that was directly copying my patented design was looking to get a patent on one of their other designs. So, you are getting a patent to protect you from people doing to you what you are doing to me? This is the kind of thinking that is out there. So do not get too comfortable with this idea that the community will respect your creativity and hard work. Just assume they are thanking you for doing the hard work for them.

And, now, with 3D printers being so available, if you have a business manufacturing anything plastic, anyone can copy exactly what you do and parrot your marketing exactly and siphon off your customers. It is so easy to do that people feel entitled to do it. It is the “free market” right? I hear that as a justification all the time.

Reptile breeders have an even harder time with it. Every time they sell their product they are starting a potential new competitor. And they are duty bound to help this potential competitor get started with the set-up and knowledge to be successful, at least with the care of the reptile. And every breeder can share the story of customers that buy bloodlines, soak the breeder for all the information possible, and then set up at the booth an aisle down at the reptile show trying to get all your customers for $50 less on prices. And then, of course, they perceive that they have to differentiate themselves and the people you helped get to this point are now smack talking and saying things behind your back. Nothing personal. It is just business, right?

If you have a business, whether 3D printing, dry goods, or breeding, I suspect you have seen yourself in one of these situations. The problem is that there really is very little entrepreneurship going on. Sure, there are many people that love that word and want to make you think they are one. And, yes, they will get away with it. But the true entrepreneur is someone that brings something new to the table, whether feature or manufacturing process, something substantially new. But it doesn’t feel that special to be the true entrepreneur, create something, and then see someone else copy you, take the credit, and…get away with it. And isn’t it frustrating that the people who are buying the product for 10% less from the copier just don’t seem to care who made it first? Or who is telling the truth?

But it gets worse. It isn’t uncommon for people to copy and then try to remove the original inventor. This apparently happens on the Etsy platform where someone will copy a T-shirt design and then when the original creator tries to sell it, the copier gets them kicked off as the copier. I got a patent on my Dragon Ledges based on a story where someone invented a certain special type of cage and it got copied by a larger company that quickly pushed a patent through and sent a cease and desist to the person who invented it. I want to acknowledge that I do not have details in these cases and so I do not know the entire story. But none of that behavior sounds out of the realm of reality considering how much people want to take credit for what they are selling regardless of who invented it.

So, how do you feel about starting a business now? How do you feel knowing that the community you are serving may or may not have your back when a discount is involved?

Well, it is worth taking a step back and realizing that a big section of the silent part of the community recognizes and appreciates what you are doing. You will have some people speak up and defend you. But that doesn’t do much good if there is nothing to stop the copiers from conducting their business.

Now, I do want to frame this episode as dealing with people within your community that are copying what you do. Last season I did an interview with an artist that had professional scammers scraping her website and making miniature molds of her sculptures to scam people into thinking they were getting her artwork. This is a very serious identity theft and we covered that situation. This episode is a step down and covers people in the community copying what you do and presenting it as their own.

Okay, my entrepreneurs, I can not promise you a feel good episode here. Here are some uncomfortable facts of life which we have to deal with. You can’t do much about people copying what you do. You can get a patent which will allow you to tell them to stop. But, short of that, there is little you can do to stop them. Of course, every situation is different so your product and community may have some options that are not available to others. But I am going to deal with the common situation where the people copying you are not doing anything illegal and, thus, you have no recourse. Even if you led a social media rebellion against them you would have another pop up soon after and will end up spending time and resources constantly battling this. How you handle it is up to your best judgement. But here are my six suggests for dealing with this situation.

First,

Live the life with passion – this is how you will know what to do and what your community needs. You are immersed in the life, whatever that may be, and every day are asking yourself how this can be made better? How can we move forward?

People that copy often do not have the mindset to innovate. They think they do, of course. But, there is risk in innovating. There is safety in copying. So the people copying you will, by nature, wait until you make your next move. Use the time they are taking to copy you to work on the next revision. And this is how living the life helps you. You have that innate sense of the value of what you are doing. And so, you stay ahead by living it and being the source of innovation.

And this is what you share on social media. Not your design ideas, but you living the life. And this is what sets you apart from the people who can only copy. You get known as the one who is living the life. People follow you and they know you. The people copying you will have trouble keeping up. Now, I know, sometimes prominent members of the community will copy you. Every year or two I have some new caging company copy some aspect of the caging line I pioneered and talk about how innovative they are. The only defense I have against that is to live the chameleon keeping life. And I wish I could give you the answer that allows you to innovate safely and include your audience with you as you create. But the fact is that stealth is your greatest asset. The spark of innovation needs to be inside of you. And you continually stoke that spark of innovation when you are actively living the life that the product is designed for. I make chameleon cages and I am working with chameleons on a daily basis. I know what is needed on cages because I live and breathe it. I have a very active podcast that is entering into its eighth season because I am actively living the life. And not only do product ideas come to me on a regular basis, but I know how to market them and make them better. People that copy me have trouble moving forward because they don’t have the vision. What I have now, whether cages, accessories, or market outreach is just the middle step in my vision. I stay ahead because I am following my vision, not what is being done around me.

Do not talk about what you are going to do. Talk about what you have done.

There is a satisfaction in talking about what you plan on doing. The start of the year is a very fun time as I dream up everything I will accomplish this year. And, if you have all these very cool plans, you want to share them with as many people as possible. That feels good, right? It feels a whole lot better than spending six months schlogging through execution to make it happen.

There are two dangers in sharing your goals up front. One is that you might decide that the dopamine shot you got from sharing is enough and you lose interest in actually achieving the goal. The second is that you are notifying the people watching your product line of what they should try and copy. Remember that people copy for two reasons. The first is that they can’t figure out an idea of what to do, and, second, they don’t know what to put their efforts towards. An entrepreneur has a vision that no one else sees and works to make it happen. If you don’t have a vision you don’t know which direction to go or are less willing to take the risk to take a step forward. If they are watching the entrepreneur then they just trust that that is the direction to go because someone already went through the effort to think about it. I watched with amusement as some of the people copying my cage line copied features and characteristics that they had no idea what the purpose was. They just copied one for one and relied on my marketing to help what they were offering make sense.

Now, one of the biggest challenges for an entrepreneur is social media. You need to do marketing and having a significant presence on social media is required these days. When your brain is working on product development so much it is hard to think about something else to share. And so, it is tempting and natural to share what is on your mind. Authentic, right? Well, yes, but I think you already know the advantages of not playing your cards too soon. I will talk about marketing and social media alternatives in just a few minutes. But for this segment, the point is that, when it comes to product news and product discussion, save your public announcements and discussions for product news that is on something you have already done or something that is in the final stages of development and is so innovative that the mere fact that you are creating it is news. But make sure you can finish it soon. As soon as you discuss it on social media you will notice the vultures start to circle.

Keep your eyes on your vision. Do not look back or to the side. Do not look at what other people are doing and second guess yourself. In the consumer electronics world we had the innovators that came out with the new products and the fast followers who essentially copied the products once the first lessons learned were in. This is standard in all industries. I know this podcast is designed for business in the reptile world and fast followers are part of that. But if you are going to be a fast follower, please include something unique and value add. Something that makes it more than just a copy. But, you entrepreneurs, I want you to have a vision so strong that you are not distracted by the fast followers. By time they are copying last quarter’s product line you are already getting ready to launch the next version or product. Keep your eyes forward and work on your vision. I am not saying to ignore the copiers because they aren’t significant. Yes, they are annoying. Yes, they can damage your sales. Sure, they may be unethical from the unspoken entrepreneur’s creed, but there is not much you can do about it. And if you cannot do anything about it you need to focus your attention on what you can do something about and that is to fulfill your vision.

Aggressively innovate. When you stop growing you are dying. This is a universal truth. And so that vision that we keep talking about needs to be a big one that has multiple steps. We all know nothing is infinite and there will be an end to amount of innovation you can put into a cup holder, but the cup holder is part of a larger vision. Have a plan that has new products or features released on a regular basis. This makes you known as the person to watch. Make sure there is continual dust behind you to leave your copiers in. And, I do know that isn’t always easy. In the past, I have gone through years of stagnation because of factors outside of my control and I have had to watch my businesses suffer because of this. So, yeah, it isn’t always possible to do what you know needs to be done. Can you imagine someone like me who is so intimately aware of the dangers of stagnation having to watch it happen? Sometimes it takes a lot to get parallel paths going or get around the reason for stagnation. But, you have to do it. You have to keep growing and innovating. If you are not innovating you are dying. How long you can surf the momentum you have had before depends on how big you build your business. We all know of businesses that are dying, but are still many times bigger than the growing businesses around it. Since this podcast is more for the start-ups, I think I am safe to say, for my audience, that there isn’t a whole lot of coasting space and that if you are not actively growing or innovating you are just giving space for some one to copy you and enjoy the fruits of the market you created. So, have a vision. Have a long term plan. And step on the gas.

Do not fear the wrong path. The reason why you are able to do things that have never been done before may be that you are so dedicated to your vision that you have not considered failure. Well, sooner or later, depending on your personality and financial status, the fear of failure will raise its ugly head. And this isn’t always an irrational fear. Losing the house due to a business failure is more than a self-esteem issue. So, yes, we have to be smart about our risks. But what is special about the people who make things happen is that they are okay with failing. We entrepreneurs usually have such a clear vision in our heads that we chalk failure up to being a head of our time. But this is important. It doesn’t matter if something doesn’t work. Yes, it takes time to fail and it costs money to fail. But that is all education. Seriously. My biggest business failure put me into a rare experience bracket and there was a confidence that came from surviving that which cannot come from an MBA degree. In fact, when I went back for my MBA I wanted to correct some of the text books. Failure is an amazing teacher if you allow it to be. And, as an entrepreneur, we see failures as being stepping stones to our next success. This is why we keep going.

And finally,

Make a huge noise about everything you do. This is why you have that social media account. You need to be out there and helping your community see your vision. Not your product plan, but your vision. How is it you are making the community a better place? Why are you doing what you are doing? If you are in the reptile world wanting to create a business you probably have a passion for your reptiles and want them to be cared for in a better way. This is your vision. I have that with chameleons and I know entrepreneurs in so many different niches that have the same passion for their reptile genera. And so help your social media audience share that vision with you. This doesn’t mean you have to share your product road map! Just talk about how what you have already done fulfills this vision and when you get to the next step in your product plan you share that. But be loud about what you have done and how it fits into your vision. The only way you can get credit for innovations or vision is if the people out there hear about it from you first. I am sorry there is no justice, but people assume whomever they hear it from first is the originator. So you need to aggressively be in the lime light. I know we tend to be shy about demanding credit, but the people who copy are not shy at all. Forget any sense of shyness and modesty and wanting to get recognition for what you have produced rather from asking for it. If you have ever worked in corporate America you know the people who are loud will take the credit from the quiet people who produce. This is just the way it works in human society so the only way for you to discourage the copiers is to proactively promote yourself. I know how hard it is for introverts to do this. I struggle with it all the time. I am lucky I have my wife to remind me to take credit for what I do. But us introverts need to learn to take care of ourselves. And so, if you are modest and humble, then your action item is to practice showing off on social media what you have done. Seriously, write that assignment down. There will be a quiz next time. And remember, share what you have done, not what you are planning to do.

So, let’s go over the action items

1. Put together a vision for your niche. Where would you like your community to go? This isn’t the product line. It is the reason for the product line. Example, A vision when I started the Dragon Strand chameleon caging company was that I would be promoting the individual raising of baby chameleons and a organized breeding room. And so, in my outreach, I talked about the benefits of keeping things organized and the advantages of raising babies individually. The product roadmap simply supported these goals. When I presented the products it already made sense because I had already explained the reasons I was doing this. Whether your product is 3D printed items, soil mix, videos on YouTube, podcasts, or the reptile species that you breed. Why are you doing this? If at all possible, consider putting together a long range plan that you can keep your eye on and aggressively move forward. If that plan includes watching what someone else does then consider getting a stronger vision that you can believe in that does not include using someone else’s work.
2. Start a social media strategy that talks about your vision. Ideally, you would have at least one product that supports this vision, but talking about your vision at a high level and in a way not necessarily connected to your products allows you to be known for something and your products will just make sense when you release them. Even if people try to copy your 3D printed devices, you win because people are coming to you for information and either do not know about the other products or are not sure they can trust the other manufacturer. Regardless, social media allows you to make your marketing an educational experience which develops trust in your audience because they see what level of care you have for the community
3. Aggressively and passionately follow your vision. Now is the time to make it happen. Your strategy is to move fast, push forward, and train your followers to expect good thing to keep coming from you. You will have people trying to distract you, pull you in different directions, copy you, and try to take attention away from you. Sometimes you have to respond. That is a case by case basis you have to decide. But always ask yourself just what will you accomplish in the eyes of your future follower customer. The stronger your vision, the easier it will be to block out the distractions.

Entrepreneurs will tell you that the world changes when you create a business. You might be surprised how friends can suddenly be your competitors and now are back stabbing. Anytime you stick your head up and attempt to do something extra ordinary it challenges people around you. And everyone reacts differently. So, yes, when you get a vision and put a business behind it expect your world to change. Expect to see certain character traits in friends and community members that disappoint you. But this is the price of doing something with your life. This is the price of rocking the boat. This is the price of success. You may be thinking, but I am not making enough money to be having friends turn against me! Well, just the fact that you had the guts to do something, to risk something, means you are changing your life and entering into another level of living which challenges your friends and the people in the community. To make this worse, I have been encouraging a vision. Visions generally mean change. And anyone comfortable with how things are now, or figured they would be the ones making visionary changes, may not like what you are doing. So, expect a great deal of pushback and people trying to take advantage of what you are creating for their personal gain. This is why you need a strong vision.

I hope, during this episode, you came away with a sense of how to give your outreach or company purpose. That purpose is your guiding light which will serve you well when you feel injustices around you. I wish I could tell you the people copying you would get what is coming to them, but this is the real world where bad guys win sometimes more than the good guys. And how do we deal with that without becoming the bad guys ourselves? Simply, by creating a vision, a purpose, a mission that we are following as our higher purpose. It can be a general as helping a chameleon breeding project be organized and as focused as experimenting with better ways of getting blue tree monitors to breed. These are the visions we will be known for and it is having a strong vision that will set you apart from other people trying to be in the same space as you. It won’t be fair. You will take some gut punches. Sometimes from people who were your friends. And you will find things out about people you wish wasn’t true. It is all part of the package. But you will start to find new friends that are able to have strong visions themselves and are not threatened by others that have purpose and mission. So, there may be some perks that come along with all this misery!

Thank you very much for joining me here today. Keeping an eye on a vision may not be easy, but I don’t think you because an entrepreneur because it was easy. This is Bill Strand signing off. I will see you next time.