They can’t steal it because you’re giving it to them

In the modern business landscape, competitors from thousands of miles away can replicate your product overnight.

These lightning fast copycats have become a huge nuisance for many startup founders.

Reminds me of the heartbreaking story about the entrepreneur who spent a year designing the product that was going make him rich, a smartphone case that unfolds into a selfie stick. The man drew up prototypes, secured funding from his family and launched a crowdfunding campaign.

But then, a week before his product hit the market, he saw it on sale on a wholesale website across the globe. Same exact design, but one fourth of the price. They beat him to the punch.

As a creator, entrepreneur or company founder, there are legal measures you can take to insure against this type of counterfeiting:

Signing nondisclosure agreements, securing patents and trademarks, doing your due diligence, even jumping on a plane to get eyes on the ground in another marketplace.

These strategies are helpful in protecting a company from this ruthless copycat culture, although most intellectual property lawyers say that enforcement of the problem is essentially impossible.

However, just because imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, doesn’t mean it has to be a one way ticket to bankruptcy. Not if you’re strategic from day one.

Jen Rubio, one of the founders of Away, the billion dollar luggage brand that’s taking disrupting the travel industry, explained it succinctly in her masterclass on building direct to consumer brands:

Competitors can replicate your product overnight, but they can’t replicate your brand and the community it serves. The best way to protect your company, is to treat your product as table stakes, and treat the brand and its relationship to the customer as your differentiator.

Remember, without a brand, a company will continue to struggle to flow uphill, against the current, against gravity, against the marketplace, losing out to people who are faster and shrewder.

Find the love you can never lose, and nobody can touch you.

Are customers using your brand to copy perceived successful behavior?