Taking someone else's idea and competing with them

Question

Touchy subject, I guess, but somebody has to do it. A co-worker/manager (not my manager, just a manager although he's part owner) has several side businesses that are totally unrelated to the company that I work for. One of these is an SaaS application that he continually mentions to me in casual conversation; it's not anything revolutionary.

I'll get right to the point: I believe that I can do this idea better than he can, and I want to write my own similar application to "compete" with him. I see nothing wrong with this, as he has not asked me in any way, shape or form to do anything with this business, just blurted out what it is going to do and given me the URL of his website for it that has information regarding it.

Obviously I'm not going to steal his code or anything, but I do plan to take the concept of it, improve and make it my own, and then try to sell it. This is, after all, how business works.

I see nothing unethical about this, since I didn't ask him about it - he just likes to blurt it out to anyone within earshot about how great this new service is. What are your feelings on doing something like this, keeping in mind that I'm really taking the idea and changing it around; obviously some parts will be similar due to the type of application it is, but I'm not lifting his work.

Answer 1

The ethical thing to do would be to inform him of your plan and then proceed. He should have that knowledge so he stops giving you his ideas and can separate you from the company if he wishes.

Edit:

In response to the comments, this answer is the ETHICAL thing to do, which may or may not be the practical thing to do or the smart thing to do.

Ethics is usually not defined as what is best for you, yourself. Still, there are many ways to look at ethical decision making. An important thing to do is to keep in mind the far-reaching ramifications of every decision you make. The choices you take will touch many more people than you know. Keep this in mind when making decisions.

Answer 2

I believe the term you are looking for is Coopertition. If you guys are friends I wouldn't do it, and since he is a manager at your current place of employment, it might make it difficult on you in the future. Ethically, I don't see anything wrong with it, especially if you didn't sign and NDA or at least promise him that you wouldn't spread it around etc. If he really wanted to keep it a secret he shouldn't have told anyone.

If you are going to tell him like Jamie suggested (I wouldn't, simply because you are putting yourself at a disadvantage), I would at least do some work on it first and see what you are planning is plausable. You are really doing yourself a disservice if you tell him you are going to compete with him and then not do it.

If you are really planning on doing this, I would start looking for another job also. People often take it badly when they realize they have competition. You are at least going to have a strained relationship with that person in the future.

Answer 3

If he's part owner, you run a serious risk of pissing him off and getting yourself into issues at your current employer. Think twice before burning any bridges.

Edit: Also, he may not see it the same way you do. He may believe that you and him have and "conversations" and that you asked questions. What I'm saying is, he may think you were completely underhanded, even if you weren't, and treat you accordingly.

That said, you may want to talk to him about it. You could tell him you are considering a similar project, so that he can stop telling you things. Or, maybe you could suggest a partnership and combine your ideas to make something even better.

Answer 4

Firstly does he have a customer base? How many customers does he have? The difficult thing for you is that you need to build up the reputation and gaining customers. What ever ideas you can add so can he.

Answer 5

I suppose it's how lots of successful projects came to life. You saw an idea, you recognized the shortcomings and the potential for improvement and you did it.

The sure thing is that as soon as he learns about you rolling out your own service, the good relationships between you will be over. Or maybe he'll ask to cooperate with you if he sees you did it better.

It really depends on how much of the idea you take. maybe it's not that new of an idea after all.

Answer 6

Ethics is a way for people to fail without even trying. I see absolutely no problem with doing this. I wouldn't even tell the guy. And I'd set up a separate company and try to keep my name as far away from the business as possible, so as to not burn any bridges.

But I'm sneakier and far more cynical than the average human.

And, let's be honest, it sounds very much like you've already made up your mind what's right and wrong. You don't really need our approval. Go out and do it, that's my advice.

Answer 7

I say don't tell him anything, and do it yourself. This guy sounds like a shady bastard to begin with, since you said he has multiple different businesses in different fields.

If you can do this better or in a different way than he can, then by all means go and do it. Beat him at his own game. That's Business 101. But of course don't steal his ideas outright. Take the concept that he's been mentioning (and ONLY the concept) and write your own application to do what YOU think an app that fulfills that concept should be.

Answer 8

Unless you believe in this idea enough to risk your primary work environment being uncomfortable, i'd be very cautious about proceeding. That is, your working relationship with this person is very likely to suffer.

So you have to evaluate what the relationship is worth to you, and compare it to what you feel the idea is worth, to see if it's a good deal. If you expect it to be a side business, then it's probably not worth it in my opinion.

Answer 9

Methinks you do protest too much.

You state on several occasions in the post that what you are proposing is ethical and you see nothing wrong with what you are about to do. An yet, despite apparently being so sure of yourself you post it stackoverflow. I can only see two motives for this, either

Despite your protestations you do think it may be unethical and you are looking for support to back up your assertion that it is

or

You do feel it's ethical yourself, but you recognise that other people may feel it is unethical and you want to reassure yourself that this will not be a widely held view.

In either case you recognise that there is a question over your proposed behaviour otherwise you would not post the question. And by posting you therefore yourself answer the question - to your own mind your proposed behaviour is, or will be perceived to be by some people, ethically dubious.

So the real question you have to answer is is the degree of risk in choosing to take a course of action that you recognise as being ethically dubious to some degree justified by the potential benefit. This is a question only you can answer - there is a risk for instance that your manager will be so p*ssed off with you that you are sacked with a bad reference and will have great difficulty in finding another job. OTOH success with the idea may mean you don't need to be looking for another job.

Answer 10

He probably feels like you two had some sort of implicit trust that you wouldn't screw him. Perhaps something similar in sentiment to this: http://friendda.org/

That said, I think, ethically, you are in the clear.

Answer 11

Before you jump into competing consider the entire business, at least a few matters. Writing better software is simply not enough to compete. You have to be able to sell it; go find customers, marketing, etc. Do you have those skills? The time to do that in your current job?

If you don't have the time and skills you are going to spend time writing software you can't sell, make your coworker angry and maybe end up looking for a new job.

Since I don't know you or your co-worker I can't tell how feasible a partnership would be, you have to determine that. But, I do know from my experience and friend's experience, a one-man software shop is a lot of work to become marginally profitable.

Answer 12

If you can do it, do it. But remember (as others have noted) that you'll need business people (sales, marketing) as well as software engineers to make it work.

There is nothing wrong with doing this. You can't patent an idea (well, if you can, you shouldn't be able to), plus if he ever goes public with this idea (which of course is necessary to market it to customers or investors), anybody will be able to copy it anyway.

Perhaps it would be better to convince him that you can implement it better than he can, and either

a) He should hire you to help him

OR

b) you should hire him to help you

Or some kind of partnership?