Thread by @andy_bromberg

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 👇

It started when an investor forwarded me a pitch deck uncannily similar to Eco's.

Eco’s key value propositions: up to 5% APY rewards, 5% cashback, and the world’s first open system rewards currency.

Here’s their summary slide.

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)

They tried to get past our waitlist with varied questionnaire answers.

Including impersonating @mwseibel and @DesaiAshu, YC partners. (Unless Michael and Ashu were doing it themselves, which seems unlikely.)

They even tried putting in my personal cell #.

Then they made some very mature submissions as frustration built that they couldn't get through.

Nice 👌

Turns out their CTO was already using Eco.

At Eco, we onboard users 1:1 and send them a transcript of the conversation after. And so we found his transcript.

And of course, he asked every question possible about how Eco worked…

What’s your CAC?

How do you market?

How do you convert USD<>USDC?

What partners do you use?

“Sorry I’m a CS geek so im really interested in backend operations” 🙄

I’d share the whole transcript, but out of respect for his privacy (despite his obvious phoniness), I won’t.

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!”

But his onboarding session was 9/29/21…

… two months after he started his company.

“a student” looking for an “internship”... right? 🫠

(And, surprise: since then he’s been one of our most “dedicated” users, constantly looking at every flow in our app.)

They realized doing espionage under their own names might not be a good idea.

So they switched to a fake persona ("Sam Johnson" 🥸) to file support tickets asking about our inner workings.

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?

Then one day, they noticed that we have a Twitter bot that distributes Eco Points, our open rewards currency.

So of course... they made one too, for their “open rewards currency.”

It's fun to see how blatantly they've copied us. Here's a few more places:

A tagline? Why come up with your own when you could just use a worse version of @eco's?

Job descriptions? Why write your own language when you could just use @eco's?

Role requirements? Well if your whole company is just copying @eco, you might as well look for the exact same skills we are.

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.

But hey, what Eco is doing is compelling, and it's working. Of course people are going to copy us.

We expect that, and we welcome competition.

This is all fine. Even a bit funny 🤷‍♂️

If they're only capable of copy-and-pasting, they won't accomplish much.

But here's what's sad:

First: investors got duped by copycats who can't create anything on their own.

I don't think investors knew those ideas and words weren't original.

If they did, then that's fine — I suppose that's a strategy (although I don't think a winning one).

Most investors the copycats pitched knew about Eco and messaged me (some more aggressively than others 😂).

But others either got caught by the copycats or turned a blind eye.

@ycombinator @eniacvc @nihalmehta @anthonyha @RichLightShed @JamieLightShed @montageventures @thehousevc @global_founders @ericbluewatch @obj @leoreavidar @MattBellamy +more

I hope and believe it’s the former.

Second: Eco is building an open system — one where many projects can build towards the same goals and win together.

If the copycat founders liked our ideas, they could have come to us and worked together on something — even as their own company.

In fact, they still can.

Aaron, Sahil — my inbox is open: [e-mail]

If you — or anyone else — is interested in building on the open Eco-system, we'd welcome you with open arms.

As we say at Eco: We All Win Together 🚀

There's plenty to build, and it's way more fun together.

Closing notes:

1. I didn't put the company's name in this thread, but you can easily find it. No sense in my sending traffic to an inferior product.

2. If you're wondering if we have evidence: we do. (But no reason to tell them how to avoid getting caught next time.)

3. Every company takes inspiration from competitors and stands on the shoulders of giants.

But to me, there is a line. It may be hazy. But the copy-and-pasting, immaturity, lying, and espionage in this thread crosses it.

And when that line is crossed, it needs to be called out.

And now: back to building that beautiful open system I talked about, and putting our community's money back to work for them.

More to come soon (and, uh, presumably get immediately copied).

Check out Eco Explore III if you want to see the latest.
✌️

eco.com/explore