A new startup lifting elements of competing businesses is not unusual in today's venture world, but sometimes competing founders don't find the imitation all that flattering.
The CEO of Eco, a 16z-backed startup, is accusing another startup of plagiarizing Eco's materials and business model. In the thread, he detailed the background behind his claims, and he also spoke to TechCrunch about the allegations.
Copycats are usually subtle. But Eco has one that isn’t.
Imagine a company spent all day copy-and-pasting *everything*…
…while raising from investors like Y Combinator and Eniac Ventures (who I bet have no idea)
Well, we tracked it all. I’ve never seen anything like it
— Andy Bromberg (@andy_bromberg) May 23, 2022
The co-founders of Pebble, CEO and CTO impersonated Y Combinator investors to get access to Eco's waitlist. He claims that the questions that Phadnis asked about Eco's back-end were designed to look for employment and that multiple aspects of the product and marketing language are essentially copy-pasted from Eco.
The news that YC itself, along with other investors, raised $6.2 million in seed funding for Pebble was covered by the tech site.
The first app that pays you to save, spend, and send your money all in one balance was founded last year. Bai explained at the time that the former product was based on taking in customer funds, converting them to stable coins, and lending them out to institutions.
Both core products were based on Eco's core offerings. Eco says on its website that it is one simple balance that lets you spend, send, save and make money. While its yield product has paused lending stable coins due to current market conditions, it has historically been based on doing just that.
It's gotten so egregious that we feel the need to point out that everyone takes inspiration from other companies. We are all standing on the shoulders of giants, and all of that is true, but at some point it is just unconscionable to copy so brazenly. I'm happy to talk to them if they want to. I don't feel like reaching out to them in advance of making some public statements at this time, according to a phone interview.
According to the thread, there are multiple attempts on the part of the co-founders of Pebble to gain access to Eco. Eco was able to link these submissions to Bai and Phadnis because they were repeated submissions with the same phone number and email being used multiple times.
Then we discovered more:
Eco’s sophisticated funnel has paths built for every persona.
We found many submissions trying to discover every path… all connected to the copycats.
(shoutout @jeremycaius) pic.twitter.com/wFdbvhQuh9
— Andy Bromberg (@andy_bromberg) May 23, 2022
According to a new report, Eco's costs and technology were inquired in detail by a computer science enthusiast while he was a tester for the company. The conversation transcripts were attached by Bromberg, who asked if Eco was offering internship and if he was considering applying for a job at Eco. The conversations took place in September of 2021.
But worse than that — he acted like he wanted a job.
“Will you guys be offering internships?”
“I am a student”
“might need to apply for an Eco job”
“Eco is changing the world!” pic.twitter.com/23Q9A1UZ3a
— Andy Bromberg (@andy_bromberg) May 23, 2022
The phone number Eco had on file was used to start an account under the name Sam Johnson and submit fraudulent identity documentation.
They tried to set up an account for “Sam” but submitted fake identity information (nice one!), which our systems flagged as fraudulent.
In keeping with their very-mature approach, the account’s username is “brombergluver” — thanks, I think? pic.twitter.com/7eOeJ7addg
— Andy Bromberg (@andy_bromberg) May 23, 2022
The various components of Eco's business were listed in one of histweets.
Their site just went up, and there’s *so* much more
They stole our blog posts.
They stole our marketing copy.
They copy/pasted our T&Cs and Privacy Policy.
They copied our funnel questions.
They stole our idea of checking if users have Metam*sk.
There’s too much to post.
— Andy Bromberg (@andy_bromberg) May 23, 2022
The investors were deceived by the copycats who could create anything on their own. I don't think investors were aware of the original ideas and words.
Bai and Phadnis were encouraged to reach out to Bromberg directly by the thread. Bai said he was in the process of trying to get in touch with Bromberg and wouldn't comment on the matter further.
The two parties confirmed to TechCrunch that they had connected. They described the conversation as respectful and said they view Eco as a competitor. In an attempt to assess Eco's know-your-customer (KYC) process, he created multiple accounts under different names to try to gain access to the platform.
After talking to the co-founders of Pebble, he said that he was glad they reached out, but that his opinions on social media have not changed.
Eco has no plans of taking legal action against Pebble at the moment, according to the man.
The article was updated at 5:58pm on May 23 to say that Bai and Phadnis had a phone call with Bromberg after he posted the thread. The additional comments provided by both were reflected in the article.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
