I was just reading your article on Who’s Stealing and am writing in as yet another victim. I’ve written over a dozen children’s stories and was naïve enough to just trust the ‘big boys.’ In the end I was totally plagiarized. It’s taken me over two years just to serve Henry Holt and company. I can’t afford a 50K retainer and actually able to convince a pretty huge firm (they thought it was an obvious and blatant case of theft) to work on a contingency basis. It’s too long of a story for now but if it’s on interest to you – then please just google Swordpen vs. Holt to start. Holt has hired the most powerful firm in NY to fight it out. They know they are wrong but they are so arrogant and so wealthy and so powerful - that they think I’m crazy to have called them out onto the mat. Problem is – they are right! J We are a tiny start up publishing company.  The first story we actually decided to publish was the one that showed up on the shelves at Barnes and Noble.  Anyway, we are now about to release our first book called How Mice Became Small.  Our new site will also be up within weeks.

On June 11th, 1948, under threat of eminent domain by the USN we turned over the plans and the instrument itself that would be the “inertial navigation and guidance system for the Polaris Fleet Missile System” written AGREEMENT spells out that if and when it were ever used for other than military purposes we had the option to claim it for commercial purposes, such as the navigation of passenger planes. The Navy made sure that our option would never happen.
The value of the would be patent was established 4.2 billion dollars by a private company that was denied access to the bidding.

As private citizens we support our government, it shouldn’t be to much to expect a like reciprocation.

Woes of the Small Business Entrepreneur

Employee Betrayal and Competitor Theft!

I’m a recovering lawyer (happily retired and vowing to never set foot in a court room again) and a successful businesswoman (27 years of leading the industry in all natural horse supplements), and a single mom with Olympic aspirations.

It is my success and my aspirations to honorably represent my country in the Olympics as a top equestrian that created all my products, while keeping wannbe competitors from successfully knocking off my line of horse products!

After graduating at the top of my class in law school, pursuing additional tax law studies, running small family businesses, and practicing law for thirteen stress filled years, while training for the Olympic games, I discovered my true destiny was to be one of the few making money in the horse business.

You know how the joke goes: How do you make a million dollars in the horse business? Start with ten million dollars!

My life turned around when way back when I was complaining to my hay supplier that horses were a black hole for money. He quipped right back at me, “That is why I got on the receiving end of the black hole.” Light bulbs went off in my head. The next day I got on the receiving end of the black hole of horses and have never looked back.

I started selling to friends my little horse supplements I had developed for my own horses over the years. Whenever one of my show horses had something wrong and I could find no solution, I invented it out of all natural ingredients. Whether his coat faded too much in the sun, insects feasted on him, or lameness threatened his soundness, I would mix and blend and research, often for years, all the best of everything.

Friends who asked, “How’d ya do that?” dipped into my amazing supplements for their own horses and then told others about them.

Wallah! A company was born. Not because I intended to start a company. But because I loved the creature called horse.

I left my law practice, but kept my brain. Every day in business, I use my legal and tax knowledge.

My company, Cheval International, is now 27 years old and has lead a revolution in all natural supplements for horses for decades. Better still, Cheval grosses over $1,400,000.00 in sales per year (with better than decent profit margins and annual growth of about 15%) and I have a blast developing the products my 4 employee mix and ship.

Eventually along came the unscrupulous. I put these liars, cheaters, destroyers into three categories. My solutions to each of these business plagues is based on avoiding lawsuits. Life is too short and wonderful to spend time in court; and, when you sue one another, only the lawyers win.

COPYCATS

Men who do not know their subject (in this case horses) came along with cheap imitations. Unfortunately, often their ingredients were often bad for horses or did not work as they did not understand the subject called the horse. How do I stay ahead of them? First, I constantly evolve my recipes as my horses give me daily feedback on what makes them feel good. Judges at the shows give me feedback on what makes horses look good. We joke that my horses are the world’s largest lab rats. Horses show me what they think of every product all the time. I adjust. The “competitors” don’t know a bay from a palomino, so they never adjust. They are always behind the game, while I’m always ahead of the game-because I am hands on with the subject seven days per week. The other way I stay ahead, makes me sad. When their cheap ingredients blend together to cause horses harm, I invent formulas to fix the problems they create!

HEAD HUNTERS

The largest and oldest company in the business decided they wanted to come into the new century. I was the queen of natural horse products, new ideas, and leading the revolution in horse beauty and care. Not knowing I was essentially Cheval International, they sent a headhunter in to try to hire me away saying, “Name your own six figure salary.” My solution? I said, “No thanks, I already make six figures and expect seven figure in the next couple years. However, I’d be happy to sell you Cheval International for $5,000,000.00 and then you won’t need to hire me away from myself. I’ll sign a 5 year non-compete and let you have my horse inventions for the next five years.” I never heard from them again. Darn. I would like to sell the company just so I’d have more time to try to make the Olympic Team!

EMPLOYEES

Nothing like a disgruntled employee to try to sell your trade secrets or try to use the government against you. I’ve been reported to the EPA (they disappeared when explained I just use Apple Cider Vinegar to keep biting insects from biting, so EPA need not be concerned); the FDA (Iexplained I don’t use any drugs, but that soy and hay were my basis for many products-they left, angry at the false reporter saying they had real problems to deal with and I was not one of them); OSHA (was satisfied when I showed them we really do have bathrooms in the barn), etc. etc. If you just talk to your government agencies, they will go away happy. It is important that small businesses know this – the government and all America depends on you staying in business and staying in this country. The government needs you to create jobs, develop new ideas, and stimulate the economy. Stay on the right side of the law and the agencies are on your side, not on the side of the trouble making unemployment seeker.

Trade Secret theft? I never let an employee know the entire recipe! Either I go in at night and add the secret ingredients or Bill knows half a recipe and Jane the other half. Both are surprised when they attempt to knock off my products and are baffled that eh knock offs do not work. Or when they sell my trade secrets to competitors. Sure I could sue, but it is so much easier that no one but me knows what makes each product work. Sure, I lose a few customers temporarily, but they always come back saying they tried to knock off and it did not work. Of course, again, some company with morals that wants to make great horse products for a great profit and acquire my hundreds of thousands of faithful customers will come along and write a $5,000,000.00 check to me some day and I will then, and only then, reveal to the check writer all my horse secrets.

“There is no secret so close as that between a horse and his rider.”

My secret weapon? I know my subject better than anyone in the world. I know and love horses. Horses never lie. They never tell my secrets!

To Yadguy, dead wrong, stick around and you will learn…

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This concept and act has been around since people started to own things. The idea is “let’s take advantage of someone’s misfortune.” I ain’t a saint, but I will tell you a short story. Many decades back a wealthy doctor was telling me about “tax sales.” He went on about the deals I could get. He mentioned that there was one coming up that he was going to and did I want to ride along. I rode north to a beautiful home and out buildings and a few hundren acres of farm land. There were a mass of people, fixing to bid of the property for tax dollars unpaid. It just didn’t seem right to me, so I moseyed over to one of the small barns. There stood a man and a woman and two young children. The woman was in tears. Yes, I had to know. The man had broken his back and was two years recovering. Could not work, could not make money, could not pay the taxes on the home that had been in his family for generations. The story, in this case has a happy ending. Today I gave a buck to http://www.focusas.com
I do not know what I will do tomorrow. But, I am not going to go to that school.

Let people copy.

If your product or service is any good, you will not lose a significant amount of business to copycats. You have to be willing to give freebies to people in order to get them to buy more stuff later.

There will always be bottom-feeders in the business world. But those people are fly-by-night oprations just trying to make a quick buck. A good business always strives for improvement and refines their business on a regular basis. A bad business will just try to copy whatever is hot and will usually do a bad job at it.

Don’t chase after the bottom. Continue to climb to the top.

I think you should also look into grocery diverting which is also a grey market in the USA. It’s a billion dollar industry which most people don’t even know exist. With the cost of food on the rise it could be more germane for the average consumer then high end speakers.

Two points: pursuing a decade long lawsuit against Wal-Mart or any other giant corporation is a very bad idea. Publicover will never see more than a small fraction of what he believes he is “owed” and the process will damage his company and perhaps even his health. The article closes with the observation that “he sounds tired.” This is a telling sign.
Also: using one manufacturer to source your entire product is like giving a burglar the keys to your house and the code to your alarm system. The smart move is to spread fabrication of the subcomponents among several vendors — preferably in different countries — and do final assembly in your own shop. This does not guarantee against reverse engineering but sure makes it a lot harder Combine this strategy with constant innovation and the copycats will always be lagging behind — which in the end is your only real defense.

The Accountant embezzlement article had no spunk or meaning This stuff happens all the type to small businesses….

Hello.

You guys really missed the story on this article. The CFDA bill is going nowhere in Congress, and for good reason — most of the fashion industry recognizes that imposing copyright on the fashion industry would do little but create a huge litigation headache. The industry is profitable and growing, and long has been. There is no problem to fix. And that fact is evidenced by the refusal of the largest apparel trade association — the American Apparel and Footwear Assn. — to sign on to the CFDA bill.

You should do a follow-up on this story where you explore why the CFDA bill is dead. You might start with this short essay, which I co-wrote: http://www.virginialawreview.org/inbrief.php?s=inbrief&p=2007/01/22/raustialasprigman

Chris Sprigman

Bookkeepers in small businesses are the classic fraud and employee theft stories …

New services that provide outsourced bookkeeping cost less and provide better protection to business owners.

We use: http://www.neadvisorygroup.com

but there are several out there.

We pay way less than we used to pay our bookkeeper (who ended up stealing $4,300 from us) … and we get CPAs.

Whose Moradi? No introduction in the article. Mentioned only once. Please proof before publishing.

My business of vintage T-Shirt designs was ripped off by my eBay marketing team.
They told me that my product line was not profitable, and then opened a new eBay stores and websites with my product line. A civil action is pending. My advice to anyone in business is to save all emails for trial as I did

One thing any business owner can and should do to protect his business is to protect his web site against cybersquatters. These are competitors in the same business as you who buy domain names that are similar to yours hoping that a slight common misspelling or variation of your name will send the customer to their site. For example, if your domain name is smythswidgets.com, you would also want to register such variations as smythwidget.com., smithwidgets.com, etc.

I’ll tell you who’s stealing our business. It’s the illegal Immigrants! I
run a small construction company in West Palm Beach, Florida. My employees
have always been legal. We pay our taxes and insurance. We have mortgages to
pay and children to send to college. We can’t possibly compete with illegals
who live in storage containers or share cheap apartments with ten or fifteen
others. And where are the Feds anyway? If these workers are illegal, then
they are illegal!!! I say get them out of the Country and arrest anyone
abetting them.