Hey - I'm one of the founders of Curebit, and yes - it was a boneheaded move..
We had a different homepage, were a/b testing different pages, came across the 37signals post and were like 'wow we should see how that converts!' We are big fans of rails and what 37signals is doing and did not really think through the implications of what we were doing. We just kind of thought about it as a fun test to run.
Clearly it was stupid. It was not meant to offend anyone and we are adding credit where due. (We'll take it down if DHH insists!)
Our new designer will take a crack at more than our homepage... we need all our UI "designed".. not redesigned, but designed - because we're primarily backend guys. Yes, this landing page variation was heavily inspired (read: blatantly ripped off) from Highrise -- because these are the peeps we aspire to, and they've done a lot of testing to figure out what works: http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2991-behind-the-scenes-ab-tes...
We're running a "ghetto test" - this homepage variant does not even share a common CSS file with the rest of the code base. It's been live less than a week.
The idea was to just see how the conversion characteristics were before investing a lot of time into making a "real design" out of the lessons (prominent testimonial, light copy focused on value props). Hence the hot linking, inline styles, etc. It is personally my fault for not including a credit to Highrise for the design.. that credit is well deserved and will be added shortly - a big oversight on my part.. we launch some stuff fast (other things deliberately), and this was one of those fast things.
Lesson to us: add credits, and be more explicit what we're testing... ask permission instead of asking for forgiveness. In the meantime, please forgive us? :)
It is personally my fault for not including a credit to Highrise for the design
Lesson to us: add credits
Crediting someone for their property doesn't make stealing it ok. By default, stealing is wrong. Waiting for an objection and/or linking to the owner doesn't change that. This seems like a problematic worldview for a young company.
Your response here makes it worse not better. You copied from them blatantly including linking to their assets and then your first lesson learnt is "add credits"... really?
You are still not planning on taking it down, just adding a credit to their site?
I personally would never use a service that has this level of integrity, I wouldn't trust any of my information with it.
I agree - when it comes to web design, people steal ideas from everywhere. The way I see this as a bit different, is that they actually took the design verbatim and then cross linked the assets...so technically, they stole the bandwidth and images which may have royalty's associated with them.
As for duplicating the layout and taking the concepts, that's fair game in my opinion. The actual graphics should not be stolen and re-used.
They ripped off the concept and idea of the pricing table, yet they didn't flat out take the design and just modify the text. These guys took every single element, changed no style.
Allangrant, as you stated you are a back end developer. While that's good to note, it doesn't exclude the outcome that DHH and the community have already commented on.
However, I think something that is missing is a little more guidance. Other than the issues others have communicated, the web page showed that your company hasn't established, even in very raw form, it's own style that is best for its users. It's normal to reflect and be inspired by others designs. I would even recommend that you take screenshots of the design styles that speak to you. From that point though, the screen shots should be used as "internal" discussion materials that help your company find the essence of its own style. That style should always be taking what's best for your product/service and user base, into the style characteristics.
Once you've found your core style, express it and iterate over it using each iteration as a piece of more relavent inspiration to your style (37Signals recently released a cool video on their blog that demonstrates this process through their eyes). The results should make you proud enough to express and share it with your customers. Only at that point do you finally make it public. After that keep iterating over it. If you utilize external inspiration, make sure that you've iterated over it enough that your style doesn't feel like a knockoff. You should be able to identify this easily and odds are, if you've been going through all this it won't be. However, if you have concerns just take screen shots of your style and the screen shots of what externally inspired you,...show them to some people who don't work for your company and weren't involved with the design process. They should be able to 1) pick up on your style and 2) agree that it isn't a knockoff. Given the situation you are in, I would recommend this heavily to help give piece of mind.
I realize that you wanted to gain from the lessons learned from 37Signals internal design iteration process as well as other companies. However, if you note what I said above, it means they were focusing "also" on their product and their customers. Which means if you directly reflect your design from theirs, you weren't focusing enough on your customers. You might have intended to give your customers a great design experience, but without going through the process above, your website is considered not authentic...and as a result people focus on the their feeling of "this looks oddly familiar" instead of focusing on what your product can do for them.
Many, if not all of the people who have commented have gone through their own artistic design process to build one or more designs. And at times it can be "hell" (fun, but still) to create something that the designer feels is good enough to share/use. It is a compliment that someone is inspired by your design. But when it's closer to a knockoff it can make the designer feel like they sacrificed him/her-self for your free ride. If they intended for it to be given away, then the benefit you receive gives them whatever good feeling they were looking for. I'm sure you have, like many people, worked insane hours that took away from family, friends, and even yourself.
I hope humility, honesty, and hard work guide your company to a design that you can be proud of.
I do have to say, based on the evidence that DHH keeps unearthing, it does not seem like your company has put forth the immediate effort needed to represent that your company is taking to heart what is being said by DHH and others. That unfortunately is effectively like a strike 2. First for the action, and secondly for the inaction. Yes the inaction is both in relation to PR and actual outcome of change.
For the future viability of your company, you might consider immediately removing all content and styles even remotely considered to be "borrowed" (by any definition)...even if it means your websites are bland and almost blank. That however only closes the door on any indiscretions. Going through the challenges of repentance and acquiring forgiveness, is something only your company's heart can achieve. Seeking guidance would also probably be a good idea to get you through this current PR issue.
On your twitter pic it shows that you wish to stop sopa. In a recent case, GoDaddy had their own PR problem that cost them dearly. Given that your company is a start up, even with $1.2M in funding, appropriately negative PR like this can cost the company it's life.
*PS: 37Signals has 2 good books to read. I believe "Rework" even has some comments regarding when you screw up as a company. However, since it is the authors themselves to which your company has afflicted....
I hope your company is able to make the right choices.
The real lesson here is a hidden one for YCombinator startups:
YC gives you money, but they apparently do not provide you with advisors, handlers, lawyers or PR people who will intervene to stop you from making such a boneheaded, potentially explosive move, nor step in and help you figure out how to gracefully recover from a mistake.
Seriously? Credit where credit is due? Ha ha, it was stupid, we stole your design AND your assets, hee, aren't we a trip, funding, something something, TechCrunch, split testing makes it alllll better.
If you need an adviser, handler, lawyer or PR person to tell you "don't blatantly copy/steal other people's shit", you shouldn't be in business, you should go back to kindergarten.
I agree. But the business of companies like YCombinator is to simply bet on lots of inexperienced, green young people and hope some of them pan out.
When they invite you to their program or (better yet) get you more funding, it probably feels like a mandate. Which makes things so much worse without guidance.
> did not really think through the implications of what we were doing
But the part about stealing someone else's work and passing it off as your own obviously had some thought put into it. One could only imagine what other parts of your app were repurposed from third parties.
We had a different homepage, were a/b testing different pages, came across the 37signals post and were like 'wow we should see how that converts!' We are big fans of rails and what 37signals is doing and did not really think through the implications of what we were doing. We just kind of thought about it as a fun test to run.
Clearly it was stupid. It was not meant to offend anyone and we are adding credit where due. (We'll take it down if DHH insists!)
Our new designer will take a crack at more than our homepage... we need all our UI "designed".. not redesigned, but designed - because we're primarily backend guys. Yes, this landing page variation was heavily inspired (read: blatantly ripped off) from Highrise -- because these are the peeps we aspire to, and they've done a lot of testing to figure out what works: http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2991-behind-the-scenes-ab-tes...
We're running a "ghetto test" - this homepage variant does not even share a common CSS file with the rest of the code base. It's been live less than a week.
The idea was to just see how the conversion characteristics were before investing a lot of time into making a "real design" out of the lessons (prominent testimonial, light copy focused on value props). Hence the hot linking, inline styles, etc. It is personally my fault for not including a credit to Highrise for the design.. that credit is well deserved and will be added shortly - a big oversight on my part.. we launch some stuff fast (other things deliberately), and this was one of those fast things.
Lesson to us: add credits, and be more explicit what we're testing... ask permission instead of asking for forgiveness. In the meantime, please forgive us? :)