Yes, we copied Medium’s design! And we made a mistake.

One of the first questions/comments that I get from almost everyone who reviews Knowledge Maps is — It looks a lot similar to Medium. Is it embedded in Medium, does Medium have a framework or did you guys bluntly copy their design?

Well, the third option is the right answer — we bluntly copied their design. 

I am writing this post because — instead of getting a constructive feedback on the platform, my interaction with most of our early adopters stays limited to us copying Medium’s design and me trying to explain the reasons behind it.

In my defence I would like to begin by saying — I love medium. It is probably the only site that I spend most of my time on apart from Knowledge Maps and Facebook (and Facebook only because it’s a great channel for user acquisition and conducting customer interviews. FYI, more people respond to cold Facebook messages than to friendly emails). 

The only thing that I love more than Medium is Medium’s design. It is such a brilliant piece of art. The perfect line-heights, icons, font-sizes, font-families, color palette, blank spaces, margins, everything. It’s just so perfect. 

Being a first time developer (doing both frontend and backend in my two member startup), getting inspired by Medium and copying its design was probably the easiest pitfall for me, given that we are working with the “fuck it, ship it” attitude. I read in an Andrew Chen blog post that the fastest way to reach Product Market Fit is to copy 80% of what already works and innovate the remaining 20% (the percentage that forms the core of your product).

Now you may say, I could have made a few changes to the style/colors/font or even font size. But in my defence I have Picasso, T.S. Eliot, and Steve Jobs. Picasso is arguably quoted to have said — “Good artists copy, great artists steal”. Now, that quotation might be false, but what about T.S. Eliot saying —  “Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.”? There’s quite an evidence for that. As for Apple, we all know where the GUI and mouse came from.

Passage from T.S. Eliot’s book The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism (1920)

Now, I’m not the lonely culprit. But the thing is — imitating Medium’s design is making us pay quite a high price. The reason — Medium is a well known platform, and we are just another dorm room startup. People know and value Medium, they don’t know us yet. Whereas, in the case of T.S. Eliot and Apple, most people hadn’t read or seen the original work. Apple’s mouse was still new to people’s eye. And so stealing didn’t matter much.

And as of now, we can’t really change the design of Knowledge Maps:

1.) There’s just so much pending shit that we need to ship.

2.) We really don’t know which other design would work for us.

But in the near future, we are definitely going to change it. And if you happen to be a designer, or maybe you are learning about design or maybe just a creative person who loves beautiful design and happens to like the concept behind Knowledge Maps, we would love to get in touch with you. 

For other startups who don’t have designers on their team, here are my key takeaways:

1.) Never steal/copy design of a well known product. People will compare you with them, even if you are offering a completely different value proposition.

2.) It’s great if you can copy the design of a failed product which had a great UI and UX. The reason is — you’ll be able to ship it early. And most people won’t be able to get the imitation because the imitated product wouldn’t have been popular.
 
3.) The biggest drawback of copying/stealing design of a well known product is — you’ll find it difficult to get a constructive feedback from the early adopters on your own product.

If you have had any such experience or have any suggestions, please share them in the comments below or ping me on twitter @arjun_tuli

Just before I end, here’s a compliment to Medium: