"Somebody Stole My Sh*t!" : Copycats, Counterfeiters, and How to Protect What You've Built

What would you do if someone stole thousands of hours of your work, your creativity, your original ideas, your intellectual property, and started selling counterfeit copies all over the internet? That's exactly what happened to today's guest, Danny Donovan, and instead of crumbling, she fought back one and is here to tell us exactly what she learned. So you don't have to find out the hard way. Stay with me. Danny, for listeners who don't know you yet, although in the ADHD world they would have to be under some kind of rock, give us this short version of what is the anti-planar and what made you decide, you know, I think the world needs one more productivity tool except, you know, not like the others. A little bit. So I got started making ADHD comics and had one kind of takeoff unexpectedly. And so being around my like ADHD audience and peers and posting and seeing what really resonated with people and what sort of topics we were all really drawn to and and cleaning some information out of that that so many of us don't just struggle with getting distracted, but we struggle with perfectionism and like waiting to feel like it and how difficult things can be when you don't have external accountability or how discouraging it can feel when you start something and are excited about it, but you can't finish it. And so there's all of these like emotions that I realized were kind of at the core of why I was procrastinating because I am the person who has bought so many planners, so, you know, many productivity tools and systems and online classes and self-help books and the whole shebang. And I don't stick with any of them and that always made me feel like such a failure. And so for me, when I went to kind of create a different sort of tool, what I did was look at what do I not like about other tools, and what do I do to be up for failure with these other tools that I was trying and how can I kind of solve for those problems. And so many of them are like requiring consistency or they're like cold and unfeeling and they don't have any guidance. And so for me, I really wanted to create something that helps people to navigate how am I feeling? You know, I'm feeling overwhelmed and then you can flip to, you know, that section and there's different types of overwhelmed. And so I think that my feeling intimidated or over committed or panicked or burnt out and you say, I'm feeling burnt out. And then you flip to that section and you can find here are specific tools that help with burnout that can help you get stuff done when you're feeling burnt out. And I think that that sets people up for success because so many of us with ADHD are tired of feeling like failures. And so making something that has over a hundred different ways to get stuff done that are categorized by the thing that's making it challenging, you know, kind of sets it into a different category where it's not quite a book and it's sort of a workbook, but you don't have to fill stuff out if you don't want to. And it's not a planner, it is a like what people have called it like a productivity spell book, right, but being able to find a tool that is actually a hundred tools. It's like a Swiss Army knife of procrastination, busting strategies. And so the biggest thing is recognizing you might be using the wrong tool to try to solve a problem. You might be trying to use a planner to solve, you know, if you're writing stuff down time and time again and you're not doing the stuff, it doesn't matter how many times you write it down, you're not being, you know, getting what you need. And so if you are able to, you know, find what that what that resistance is, you can find the right tool. I love the right tool for the right job. And I think one of the things that's so frustrating and really confusing to other people about folks like us with ADHD is that we go off on these epic searches for the perfect something or other. And then we'll think we found it and I call it the soulmate phenomenon. And we fall deeply madly, passionately in love with this new thing for about two weeks. And then we're like, we're off in the search again. So the thing that so crazy is that even when you find the thing that you've been looking for and it brick and delivers the goods, we will still only be able to use it for a short period of time. So, or go why we have so many shelf health books and so many planners and so many productivity tools and so many of these little timer thingies and you know all the other things. But what you did with this anti planner and I'm going to share it here for those who are clip getting the video clip here. This is you talked about it from the practical side. I want to just give you some feedback on the tactical side, the tangible side, the physical side, the creative side, like it's beautiful, it's quality. When mine arrived the first thing I did was take it out and hug it to my chest and you later told me that you sized it so people could do that I'm like, she knows. I have reviews that people were like, I love hugging this thing. I don't know how to describe it. Well, it's funny because you know that I used to be a therapist before I pivoted into business coaching and people would sit in my office with these I had all these pillows everywhere as therapists do and people would always reach for the one that was just about this size. And they would hug it to their chest while they were talking about something that was challenging for them. So I'm like, it's a therapy pillow sized planner. Oh my god. But it's so cute. It's so practical. Like everything is. I forgot to mention that that like designer. I'm a designer and illustrator by trade and so for me was making it like I have bought so many workbooks but I never fill them out because they feel like homework. You didn't make this feel like work, Danny. It's cute. It's like everything is non threatening like you know the illustrations in it are almost like they come from a children's book. So and you know, hey, we've all been struggling with the very same things that we're struggling with now are entire lives since we were little kids who would respond to cartoon figures. So the care that went into this is so obvious. And I know from our previous conversations, you spent like well over 3000 hours creating it. So when people say, I wrote a book or I'm going to write a book. Most people have no freaking idea. First of all, what that means. But secondly, because this isn't just a book. Like to do something at the level that you did it. It's going to take 3000 hours and that's not because you're not efficient with your time. So much of it went into the planning of the framework, right? Like a lot of it. And it's people like, oh, you wrote a book and I did, but all of the pages are really structured to be for the most part if they could be one page. I wanted them to be one page. And they're all written sort of like experiments, right? Like this is what you'll need. This is how it works. This is why it works here are some tips and it's bulleted out and it's, you know, bolded. So it's like super easily digestible because by you know I come from a people know me from like my tweets and stuff like that. And so how do I make this as easy to understand so that you don't just have to sit there and read page after page just to be like, give me the point. Give me the point. And I found that the majority of those hours. I spent more time illustrating than I did writing because there's so much again, there's so much illustration and design that went into this. But I spent so much time developing the framework of how do all of these. What are all the reasons why procrastinate and how do they fit into each other. So like the book has those five sections right stuck overwhelm unmotivated disorganized and discouraged and each of those has sort of subsections because what I didn't want was people to have to look there's 16 different like sub emotions. I did not want to have 16 tabs. I did not want to say how are you feeling and then people have this like paralyzed in decision. It's a lot easier to be like I'm overwhelmed and then it's like let's drill into that in the way that like a feelings wheel sort of has like happy and there's different kinds of, you know, different kinds of happy you might feel like surprised versus, you know, calm or serene or something like that. And being able for being to show people, you know, these different sub emotions, but realizing that this was not a framework that existed before I wasn't I didn't do a bunch of research and like grab somebody else's idea and like stick it in and develop a framework around it. It was so based on lived experience and just brainstorming what are the reasons on note cards and moving those note cards around until I could figure out how stuff kind of fit into others. You know that completely makes sense and I think like many entrepreneurs solving a problem that you have for which a solution does not exist becomes the basis of a very successful business and because you you are an artist. You know you care about the details it's it's still work a lot of work, but it's necessary you wouldn't be able to do it any other way right you wouldn't be able to just slap it together and which is why when you first found out. that somebody was actually counter-fitting this work of art. Do you remember? And I listen, I know you've got some distance from this, so I don't want to trigger or retrawbidize you in any way. But when you first found out, somebody's fucking counter-fitting my work. Do you remember the first thought that went racing through your head? Violated. It was violating. It was something is happening against my will that I don't like and I can't stop. And it was it was this feeling of so there was there I guess there's sort of two emotions so there was like violating like anger towards whoever was doing this. And then there was this it's really complicated to describe the emotion because it wasn't like indignation and it wasn't shame and it was like wanting to defend myself because I found out because I started getting all of these so for context I had a viral viral video takeoff that was about why why the anti-planar cost what it does because I had somebody who said you know do you hate poor people was like the comment that I got and so I was like you know what I'm going to reply to this in a really calm like I am going to assume you did not have bad intent here and I'm going to go ahead and explain this is why it costs so much and went into here are all the materials here so much it costs I run my own business I have to pay people to help me on the back end of stuff and there's so much that goes into it that took off that went viral and so I suddenly had this like influx of orders felt really good and it was about a month later when I was getting suddenly all these emails from people who thought I scammed them from people who thought I Danny Donovan who is such a perfectionist that I spent this long making this book made this this crappy product that has like see through flimsy pages and like a flimsy cover and type like they retype the whole thing so there was just typos and I got all of this feedback from people who are angry at me while I was over here processing how how horrible it felt to have this happen and so and I didn't because I want to reply to them and and defend myself but it's so difficult you know to be kind of in that position where this thing that's like it's my worst fear is people thinking that I'm like careless and sloppy you know well I mean and to that point you know I mean clearly I always say where there are where there is opportunity there are opportunists and I can easily imagine why that video went viral Danny because every craft's person every creative person every writer artists you know designer like probably shared it with everyone they've ever met because it's the you know how do we establish our value it's I mean a lot of the coaching work that I do you know I work with people who are experts in their own right but being able to claim that expertise and charge what their value actually is that's always like that's a process that we get to and it's not just a matter of the amount of time and energy and effort you put into it I mean you did things that I would even think wow using six different custom fonts that were created from your own handwriting yeah and I went I went I went you know going through the pages going oh there's one oh there's one I miss that I mean to make it so unique in in every way and then seeing that the counterfeits are like fucking comic sands like oh my god oh my god and it's like all the all the energy all the effort all the the uniqueness that you might not even expect all of your people to find I mean they they're probably like finding Easter egg hunts you know months after they start using it they're going oh I just noticed she also did this for us but then the schlock version version started selling and the poor buyers have no idea it didn't come from you I mean I'm like I would probably go into the psychiatrist for getting some new meds that I'm not on it was it was really difficult because I had gotten like it was a while before I like ordered one like I don't I don't know where it is right now but I got one I'm like I have to see it and I remember it showing up and be opening and I just started I just started crying instantly because it was it was so bad now I will say that there are there are people who do have critical thinking skills that not that people who didn't realize it was a scam don't have you know but but there are there were plenty of people who were like someone wouldn't spend this much time making all of these illustrations designing this so well putting all of this together and having ten typos on the page right it's it's like when you get those Amazon instructions that have like random z's in the middle of sentences you're like someone who doesn't speak English wrote this and so there were there I will say that I felt proud of myself for having not put out a digital version of the book like in its entirety because people have been asking for it for a year ever since it came out people have been asking for it was like I don't want people to counterfeit this and they still did but they had to retie it so it was at least a giant pain in the ass for them to scan all my illustrations and retie everything but because they did that there was enough people who realized that this is likely not the real thing I must have gotten something that like is is is is is a rip off because the quality was so bad and it wasn't what I showed in the video you know I was like showing how you know it was like a tough cover and stuff like that and there were enough people who who saw it who understood because of how bad it was that there's no way that this is it and I'm gonna go you know I got emails who did come in and said hey I think that this is a scam and so if I would have made it where I had the digital version available they could have just printed it it could have been that you know that easy and so I do take some stock in the fact that's like it was at least you know not it was at least challenging in the fact that that it did but I guess it goes to show how hard someone worked to rip off my stuff it's a 328 page book you know Danny I think there's so many lessons in this including the fact that you you know tons of creative entrepreneurs I know tons of creative entrepreneurs who take their talent for granted it's part of the whole you know what is your value and I like to separate value from worth because that's a whole you know childhood trauma rabbit hole like well am I worth no we're not we're not going there it's the value of your work but it's not just your time it's your talent and it is your unique perspective and these are often times the things that we we take for granted we don't recognize how special they are we might even assume if they come easily to us that they come easily to everyone so when somebody says you know do you hate you know poor people and when I first saw the price point on this I'm like it was before I knew you and before I knew anything about well went into it I thought this is a bit spending so I think it's like being confronted by the reality of that and and understanding it's not just your time it's not just your energy it's it's also your talent and it's so hard to determine the value of that we almost have to rely on what people tell us about how what we've created has helped them in ways that nothing else has and I know that you've gotten a lot of that too but when the business reality of this is that hey I don't care how new you are in business or how long you've been in business if you're listening to this right now as an entrepreneur with ADHD don't ever make the assumption that your business is too small too new or too well established that this couldn't happen to you it's one of the reasons why Danny and I wanted to have this conversation because that tends to be oh it'll never happen to me but people do knock off highly specialized products like yours and because you can't compete with them on price because you have genuine production costs help the listeners understand like the math of this because I think a lot of people think okay well it's what's the difference between having a copycatter and having competitors you can always lower your price but you can't know and and that's the other thing is I think there's a couple things happening right where where people are used to cheap cheap things that are produced in in like this this book is not printed in China and so people are used to cheap products people are used to books that are put out by publishers in in which case no publisher would have let anyone spend this amount of time like the amount of time that I spent on this is like objectively you know crazy but I knew that I was like I feel like that that's gonna be worth it in the end and it was but people don't you know necessarily think about this was one person and that I am one person now like running in a single product e-commerce company that that manages the entire supply chain so I have people you know not just who come in who have to help me with my finances and customer service and people who need to come in and help manage the security on the website because oh we had somebody who's coming in who's testing a bunch of credit cards and you know if you're not paying attention if you're not paying attention, that can really screw with your stuff. I need somebody who's going in here, who's doing project management, and who is keeping track of, I was say the calendar stuff, and there's all these different roles that I can't do by myself while also being the entire marketing and sales department and the entire social media presence and the face of the brand and everything. It's too much, so having to pay people, and I wanted to pay people well, makes it challenging. So that's just one cost of the kind of back end of things. But I wanted to have a faux leather cover and gold foil so that's shiny, and you catch is the glint out of the corner of your eye. I really hate to lean into that whole stereotypical ADHD like, "Ooh, shiny thing!" But like the "Ooh, shiny thing!" It works! Because people are like, "I don't forget it. People have a little stand. I've seen people who have it on a stand and they're desk, and it catches their eye because of the shiny and so on." I think you mean "shry" right with candles and. I'm sure. Yes, exactly. This spellbook thing, exactly. I wanted to have an elastic band so that it didn't fall apart if you put it in your backpack. I wanted to have tabs so it was easy to navigate. I wanted to have wire-o-binding so that you didn't have to hold it. God, I hate holding open soft cover books. Oh my God, I can't write in those right. I was writing their backs just so you can keep them open. And that goes back to that user experience of me planning through what are things that stop me from using something that I otherwise would. And that could be the best book in the world. But it is a soft cover, and I'm not going to write in it because the experience of writing it is feels bad. And I wanted to have thick paper so that if you colored the coloring pages with markers, it's not going to bleed through. Right? I wanted to have a pen loop on it so people who lose their writing utensils could kind of like have that there. I put. I had rounded corners were extra, but I wanted it to not get like banged up and either arrived for people wherever they were storing it. So there was a lot of thought that went into the user experience of what will make someone use this, what will make somebody love this, what will make someone come back to it again and again because it feels really good to interact with. Because again, we were talking about earlier, we quit stuff so easily and that this is something that you can use it once and you could forget about it for four months and then see it out of the corner of your eye and go, "Huh, I forgot I had that and grab it again because you don't have to use it every day to be successful." But one of the things that keeps it out for people is the aesthetics of it and these paper, flimsy paper copies of it that were with the thinnest paper possible. You could literally see the next page through the page. It's like wax paper, you know, like one step up from wax paper and they used my. I had a mockup of the cover and they printed out my mockup of the cover so it looks like fake gold foil. But the reason why so many people thought that it was the real thing is they stole my images from my website. So the images they're using are not images of their fake version. The images they were using were of my actual legit one. Yeah. Now, because this is such an important asset in your business and literally the most incredible labor of love built on genuine experience as a person with ADHD. I mean, if you think about. I'm thinking about all the ways that you've talked about creating this. It's really an experience. It's not just a. It's the anti-planar but it's more than that. It's a book but it's not a book. It's that you were very. Very intensely. Yeah. Well, it's really like. it's the physical embodiment of your need and desire to reduce fatigue and friction. Every time someone with ADHD is experiencing that dysregulated emotional state that stops them from doing the thing that they want to do. So I'm totally sold on the value of it in all the different ways but one of the numbers that you shared with me, I'm just like, "Oh, shit." To protect something like this, that's such an important brand asset. And not from an imaginary threat, a real fucking threat. You are now paying more than. If I got the number wrong, let me know. More than $40,000 a year to a service that does monitoring and take down. What hack would be. maybe it felt like it was the obvious decision or the only choice you could make but that's a lot of coin. So. I feel like literally about to cry. I'm sorry. No, no, no, no, no. I'm not. It's just hearing. I'm usually the one who says it out loud so I'm saying that desensitized to it but yeah, it is. Sorry, I cut you off. No, no, no. It was. There were two people with ADHD. It was going to happen sooner or later. But. and I think we've made it. we're pretty well into this and it's happened for the first time. So I'm not even going to edit. I think this is like. yeah, part of the course. But it's a lot of money and that had to be an important decision. How. how did you arrive at it and what does this monitoring and take down service actually do for people who may be or will soon be in this very situation? So the decision to do it was challenging because I get. it is so expensive. You did get that number right. It is over 10,000, like $10,500 a quarter. And yeah, and it was so hard because it took a while for it to even be like actually, as they were working because what it. what the service. it's called Mark Vision. They use AI to scan the internet for people using my images in their listings. And so it kind of reversed Google image sources and then they submit claims to those websites to get those things taken down because to have someone do it physically by hand for how many. how many there were would take so long, would cost so much. And I have had. now it's been a year and a half ish. There have been over 3,000 listings that have been taken down in a year and a half, 3,000, which is like objectively so crazy. And there would be more if I had more viral videos but it's like every time I have a viral video, they would just like take off. But I was having them listed on sites where I do not sell the anti-planar. They were selling on Walmart.com. And I was not selling on Walmart.com. I didn't even know they could. I'm like, "Choppers." Get your copy. I know. They could do that. It was on. teamoo, which I never bought. Oh no. Anything on on Teamoo. It was on all of these websites that I then had to. there were so many on Amazon and because they used my. it's called an ASIN number. It's like your Amazon barcode essentially. And people had it listed that they were selling a legit anti-planar. And Amazon will always sell the cheapest version of whatever it is that they say is that same exact product. So the anti-planar is. it's $58 on full price and it was. you know, people were listing it for like $16. And so I don't blame people. or 1999. I don't blame people for saying, you know, looking at it and saying, "Okay, I definitely want this one because even if they wanted to buy my legit one from Amazon, they couldn't." Because it was. that listing was like stolen from me essentially. And so we had just been on Amazon for like two months before this happened. So I didn't have that many reviews. And then suddenly I had this giant wave of reviews, negative one-star reviews from people who were reviewing the scam copies. And it tanked my Amazon listing. I had five. I had like five stars, complete five star ratings across the board. And it went down to like a 3.4. And I had been like. if you looked up ADHD, I was on the first page. If you looked up planner, I was on like the second page and it had just been up. And it just tanked everything. Like it ruined my Amazon. Like it was an experience there. And it's now. it's back up to like 4.5. You know, it's 4.9 on other platforms and my brain is like, "I can't. we've reached out to them." And they won't take down the one-star reviews from these scam listings. And so people don't even realize that you can buy something from what looks like a legitimate listing and that you could get a fake product. Like that's not even a thing that people realize can happen. I didn't know it could happen until it happened to me. No, and I mean, dumb question alert. But you know, I noticed that you said that each time you went viral with a video, of course you got a dramatic influx of new orders, but that was also a signal to the counterfeiters that they could make a bunch more sales. So like, I don't know, did you ever stop. did you ever think maybe I need to stop doing videos on TikTok? Like. I. it was such a huge sales channel that it was one of the biggest ways that I was able to reach people. And so. I actually did not have the thought, maybe I'll stop making videos, but I found, like if ever I was having one that was taking off to the point that there was an increase in counterfeiters, it usually meant that I was making enough bank that it's fine and it's okay. And it will usually be like, "Okay, this is what's gonna pay for the service to take down counterfeiters." But it's like, I get to pay $40,000 a year is more than I was making at my first four jobs out of college, right? And so it's very crazy kind of seeing that number and knowing that it's like, I'm paying for the pleasure of someone else not making money off of my work. And they don't care, right? There's gotta be like no remorse from these companies. And I could, I used to just say overseas counterfeiters 'cause I didn't want to assume that it was from China, but then once the Amazon listing started coming off, you can actually see where things are coming from. And they were just, it was one place in China that was, they were all of these fake listings, but they were all selling the same fake product. And it's because one place made it and sold it on Alibaba. And they sold them in bulk on Alibaba and people who were looking for cheap dropshipping things were just buying it. There might be people who bought it on Alibaba to dropship who didn't realize that it was the fake version. I don't actually know, but like, it was on this mass distribution thing of what's hot. And if you hit the what's hot on anything, people are gonna go and grab your stuff. And so, but people would see my product and they'd open up their, you know, look for it elsewhere and see scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, all of these different ones that were cheaper. And going, of course, I'm gonna go for the cheaper one, especially if they look, if they look similar. And so they're just taking advantage of people. And again, it's the industry. It's the black, like, underbelly, like, the dark side of e-commerce that I think people don't really talk about a lot, but it's not just e-commerce. - Well, to be fair, I mean, I'm almost feel like I don't wanna bring this up because it pales in comparison, but I am in the process of trademarking ADHD-ish, my podcast, ADHD-ish method, my coaching program. And because I never really thought I needed to do that, it just didn't feel like, you know, oh, my little business doesn't require something like that. Until one of my clients said, hey, by the way, did you notice that somebody else has started a program for ADHD entrepreneurs called ADHD-ish? And I was like, what? No, I didn't know. And so it's a different experience that this brand identity theft and the trademark process will take care of it. But I really had to think about, do I wanna share this with my audience now as a result of this conversation? They're kind of hearing about it, but you had to talk about it. So when you think about like brand identity theft versus copy, you know, I guess once more of a copycat and the others more of a counterfeit, does it feel like the same problem to you or a different one? And I'm not saying because they're a different scale, but does your brain think of those as two different things or similar things? It's hard to say because again, one of them is like intellectual, I mean, they're both like forms of intellectual property theft, right? And that people, a lot of people don't look at intellectual property as property. They're like, oh, whatever, you know, say not whatever who cares. But again, I've gone through the trademark's are expensive. Also, I've had to trademark stuff. And I had to get a trademark in China because apparently in China, whoever files for trademark first gets it, whether or not you actually own the stuff. Anyways, but to answer your question, I think that it's similar, but definitely slightly different because it's like, I don't have someone who is calling themselves the anti-planar and putting up their own content under that name. I have somebody who's ripping off the same product as me and using my actual stuff, but I get, I have five star reviews on my Amazon and on my website from people who are reviewing scam copies. And they go, this thing is full of typos, but I don't care. The content is so good. I'm leaving a five star anyways. Like I have gotten five star reviews, tons, actually tons of five star reviews of people who still got scam copies. But it goes to show that at least, and to me, the way I've had to reframe that is at least, there are people who couldn't afford a regular version and who are finding this valuable, I don't love that, but ultimately, I cannot offer this at a $20 price. I cannot offer this at that. But that is still containing my, they're stealing my ideas, but they're at least packaging it where some of it is the same. I think if somebody were to take the anti-planar name and put out content, especially like, put out any kind of content and then people saw it and confused it with me, especially if they were used to seeing my stuff. And it's that confusion where trademarks come in, where people are publishing things, and they think that you did it, but it was somebody else. And they're trying to pass it off as original. And that I think is where that difficulty lies, 'cause I have not had someone who has put out anti-planar content and tried to make it seem like their own thing. - Well, now that you're not, - Now that we're, now that you're putting out, 40 large a year to monitor, and I recently added something to my website called the CopyScape Plagiarism Protector, and I will link to both the Mark Vision and this CopyScape in the show notes, along with anything else that comes up in this conversation that some of you might want to look into, but it's protects all the copy on my website, because there are plenty of people, I mean, some folks these days, they just go to AI and have chat GPT or Claude write all their copy, but other people will think, "Well, wait a minute, "this person seems to be doing pretty well, "so I'll just use theirs." Like, I think not. Now, we have our experiences, painful, traumatizing, and expensive to resolve, but what do you think most entrepreneurial folks with ADHD are missing when it comes to protecting what they've built, whether it's knowledge, like their intellectual property, their bandwidth, or something else? What is it that most people are just like, wow, that never occurred to me, but whatever. - Copyright your stuff. Starting with a copyright, right? Like, that is the thing that I feel very fortunate that I had actually like a writer who reached out to me with one of my first ADHD comics were going on. His name is Steve Peah, I have not talked to him in forever, but he DMed me and was like, you should make a website with a newsletter immediately, and you should copyright your stuff. And here's how you do it. Like, he reached out and was like, here's the little thing, right? 'Cause it was like, there's not many steps and also here's how much it costs because it wasn't that much. And like, all things considered. And so I went and did it for my ADHD comics. And so one of the things was like, at the time, I didn't have trademark for the anti-planar, but I had copyright stuff for it, but I had copyright stuff for all my comics and I have comics in there. And so I think that there's a lot of entrepreneurs who don't think about taking legal steps to protect themselves because it's, you're so focused on what's in front of you and just like making sure that you've got enough money to put food on the table that spending money on something that may or may not happen. - Yes, but it's like-- - The money aren't, you know, well that might not happen, yeah. - Yes, and you don't need it. Same thing with insurance, you don't need it until you need it. And so it's one of those things where if you are, if somebody stealing your name or somebody stealing your work would like completely screw with your business model, I mean, it's definitely, I was like, worth it when it, even though it doesn't feel like, 'cause then you keep it, right? Like you get to have it and you've got legal protections if somebody is, you know, taking towards it to either cease and desist or to go, you know, go after them for like penalties. And I think that I, I was like, take it seriously because I was so, so I was in a weird position because I'm so used to people ripping off my work online and chopping, chopping off my footers and chopping and because the internet's the Wild West and I create internet content and internet content is it gets stolen and repurposed and written over the top of and all of this stuff and that bothered me so much for so long because so often things were making the front page of Reddit and you know, I had no attribution to me, didn't point anybody back to my site and I had to choose kind of to like get over that or I'd be mad all the time. Yeah. But something like this where it's like genuinely impacting your business genuinely emotionally, it's also like emotionally upsetting. I'm sure that you kind of went through that same thing where it's just like, find that out. It's just devastating that somebody is. they could do that without remorse, you know, and to think that it was not a big deal. - Or justify it. I mean, maybe they're like, well, I feel bad. Well, I mean, I couldn't possibly know what this person is thinking, and now there's more than one, but I couldn't possibly know what they're thinking or what they're feeling, but what I do know is that they were able to justify it. It's kind of like when someone says, oh, I feel really bad about this, but, and then they couldn't do it anyway. - Yeah. - I really had to think long and hard about whether it was okay, but at the end, I decided to go for it. It's like, I'm really, I'm glad that you were able to get over your negative feelings and continue to be an asshole, but, I mean, I'm just thinking about the rejection sensitivity aspect because when the, I know you're a sci-of recognition, because when this happened, I mean, first of all, yes, you were personally targeted, even though they don't know you personally, your ability to earn a living from the work that you do deeply impacted, put you in hot water with your audience. You didn't really have a, you really didn't have a decision whether to go public with you had to go public. You had to defend yourself. And yet, this crisis happened in the midst of you continuing to run a business. It's not like you could say, okay, I'm gonna set my business aside. And I'm gonna deal with it. - That's what I did. That's what I literally had to do, which was crazy. It's like, I had to, we had stuff that we were working on, right? We had projects and initiatives, and everything just came grinding to a halt because this was impacting everything. Again, like I said, this was impacting everything we were bleeding. And it was, we were bleeding on some things, and then the website sales were still going up, right? Like, we did have the TikTok thing, and then it kind of continued after that. I found out it was because they were running ads with my video, with my face. - Oh my God. - They stole my video and were running ads on Facebook 'cause I had people who were like, I bought your, you know, who were emailing in and bought the book. And they were like, oh, I saw an ad for it on Facebook. I'm like, I'm not running ads on Facebook. - That is identical. - And so I was like, oh, right. And I did see, we did see like a sustained thing. So part of me was like, the people with critical thinking skills, who they said they said, I went to the website. I clicked on it. I went to the website. The website looked sketchy. So then I looked it up and I found your website, right? And so I did get some sales that trickled in from their diabolical advertising kind of thing. But sorry, to bring it back, what he said something right before I kind of went into that. Oh, having to tell people about it. And I and the business kind of grinding to a halt. And so we had, you know, I was pulling my operations people on my tech people and trying to like, to get banded, the like hemorrhaging that was happening because my stuff wasn't standing out. People weren't clicking on my stuff on these marketplaces because there was too much competition. And again, there were all these things. So until we got mark vision like onboarded and even after that, you know, we're feeling customer service emails and we're having to figure out like a popup on the website to tell people about, hey, look out for scam properties like to this day, the top of my TikTok bio says watch out for anti play or beware of anti planer scams. And so it ended up becoming this big thing where I had to like warn people. And then I had, I did have another, another viral video, actually like my second anti planer viral video that took off that was about the counterfeiters 'cause it was around the holidays. And I had someone on my team who I was talking to about what was going on it. Couldn't keep up because people were wanting to buy it for Christmas. And it was two, you know, other people were like, and there are some people who knowingly buy this scam copy also. - Yeah. - But, but. A lot of those people can't afford it. And you know, justify it to themselves. And it is what it is. I can't help that. But I was talking to them on a call and I started crying. I was talking about how it felt violating. And I started crying. And they were like, tell people, tell people about how this is impacting you. So I just, I set my phone down and I just hit record and started talking about it. And I started, you know, tearing up by the end of it. Like, genuinely, like my voice is like breaking. And I'm like, I don't like being a person. I'm just like, I'm gonna cry on the internet and overlaid it with some videos of what was going on. And I told people like, I paid people on my team, you know, well, but like, and people don't realize how expensive shipping is. People, I can't keep up. And then I showed the side by side comparison of here's, you know, they stole, scanned all my illustrations. They stole all my content. They used comic sands for the thing. I sort of like went into it and described it. And that took off. And like you had said before, where it's like anybody who's a, this was not just reaching people who had ADHD, business owners, small business owners, independent creators, people who are writers, people who are artists, like this was the content that that burst right out of my ADHD and found itself with entrepreneurs. - Well, I mean, you, your business apart from the anti planner runs on a combination of creative energy and hyper focus. - Yes. - And so there's no, there's no freaking way that you could just be kind of managing this crisis on the sidewalk, continuing to be creative and focused. It had to be, you know, stop the hammer, it's all hands on deck. And when you could move back into it. And obviously it's, it's still not over. It's not like you can say, "Whoo, that was rough, I'm glad that's over." You still have to, you still have to pin at the beginning of TikTok because someone coming into your, I mean, new people be exposed to you through this interview hopefully. So there'll be people who never heard of you, never heard of the anti planner, gonna start following you on TikTok and it's gonna be right there. So this is going to be a part of your reality, probably from here on out. And you've learned so, I mean, so much knowledge that you never wanted to acquire because, but if you were starting over, let's say you were even, before you even created this gorgeous girl, knowing what you know now, what would you do differently? And when would you do it differently if you would do anything differently? - I didn't think that this would, I didn't even conceptualize that this could happen without me putting the digital version online, right? So I would say I underestimated how hard people would be willing to work to steal stuff. Because again, they re-typed a 320 page book. So I underestimated that and didn't even think about Chinese kind of readers, 'cause if I would have had a Chinese trademark, I'd be able to absolutely like make legal moves in a way that I am not able to get sort of retribution for that kind of stuff. And being able to be aware, other than saying, filing for Chinese copyright, there's not a whole lot that I could have done differently because I'm glad that that viral TikTok took off, right? And I'm happy that, I hate to say like, this crisis did lead to me having another viral video that led to a ton of brand recognition. And so I think that, and not having the digital version online, I'd like to go back and pat myself on the back for the, I did think about people stealing my stuff enough to not have a digital version like that. But to understand that people could, if I told that story and people could connect and like educate with people, I'm like, I don't wanna come on here and just like pity party, you should give me money because I'm struggling. It's a, I need to tell you guys that this is what's happening and it's really hard and that people connected with that. And I almost didn't tell that story, right? If someone on my team hadn't mentioned you should film yourself raw talking about this. I might not have had that idea. So I would say that like going and realizing that like I could have talked about it sooner to start it happening in, I think July or August, and I didn't make that video till November. And so I wish that I would have been, I was talking about that there was scam copies and to be where and if you get a scam copy, here's what you do. But I was not talking about the impact that that was having on me. And I am someone who shares my story. I'm someone who shares my lived experience and I was hiding from people because I didn't want, I was afraid of having this whole like, oh, woe is me kind of attitude, but the reality is every time I've been facing business challenges that are outside of my control and I come up and I tell people about it, the community is so supportive. And again, it goes beyond just that instant who are already, who are the people who are already following me. And I had underestimated the power of that entrepreneur community as well and that solidarity that I think we feel with each other. - I think one of the most popular, most frequently downloaded of my podcast episodes is the one where I spilled the tea on a failed launch. And I-- cannot believe the number of people I didn't even know they were listening or people that they'd been shared with and they reached out and you know the thing is is that we oftentimes when something bad happens to us we somehow feel responsible for it. It's like like well I didn't even know something like that could happen. Why would you? You're not devious. Like who would think of taking out a copyright in China for crying out loud like you know but yet we somehow think and I see this so much with other folks with ADHD we really hold ourselves to a very unreasonable standard. I refer to it as having ridiculous expectations of ourselves or you know because why would you know? Why the hell would you know that and why would you even think? My stuff is so good that people would spend an enormous amount of energy and time to copy it. You're a creative person. Everybody's creative right? No they're not. In fact I think there's a lot of creative envy out there and this is the work of people with creative envy people who don't know how to create their own stuff so the only way they can make money is to rip off other people's stuff. So I think you know yeah you didn't know why would you have? It's clearly been an empowering experience and one that the former therapist and me would say this is what I call post-traumatic growth. You're not glad it happened. You're not grateful for it. You wouldn't wish it on someone you dislike intensely but it was an incredibly empowering experience because you were able to master it. Yes it's expensive. You lost your innocence right? But you know what? Look at how many people have now been informed. How many people are going to listen to this and be informed that you do need to take this seriously. Your time and talent, your creativity, your thought leadership, your expertise is valuable enough for other people to steal. There's one more question I just have to ask you. You mentioned offhand that when you priced your pre-orders you were thinking I don't know maybe 500 or a thousand people are going to buy this in the initial pre-order but didn't you get like 40,000 or more orders like completely like 10X what you expected. I have a feeling that you didn't go 40X. I'm not good at math and I know. Yeah but you're absolutely right. So that's not kind of experience where you go okay well we better gird our loins and you know a power up to printing presses. I'm sure the story didn't end with and then everything went smoothly from there right? Yeah no no no. I will say with you mentioning the like high expectations that we hold ourselves to I had like a version that I was making and then once I saw how many people were pre-ordering it I was like I have to make this the coolest thing I am possibly capable of making so it added that extra pressure on top of everything of knowing how well it could do and did actually crank up the quality level because I was like oh this is gonna go this is gonna go places this isn't just like a little pet project but it did it started as a pet project but there was so many other challenges beyond just the counterfeiters that grew out of me scaling way too fast. Yeah and you know honestly that's another I mean that's another thing that most entrepreneurs don't think about and don't think it's gonna happen to them. Nobody's anticipating counterfeiters or you know brand rip-off artists but they're also never expecting to have the problem of scaling too fast and I have a feeling that this is a juicy enough story that instead of trying to cram in at the end of this already fascinating and important conversation do you think I could convince you to come back and talk about what happens when you scale too fast? Oh my god no I hate talking about myself and my butt. I do not like talking this is so I'm gonna go upstairs and complain no this is absolutely yeah no this is wonderful I would I would love to come back. Okay fabulous we will absolutely do that because I think the things that we don't expect to happen we don't prepare for and then when they do happen even if we manage to rise to the challenge and master the situation oftentimes we're still thinking why didn't I expect that so it's like there's no winning you know we're we are relentless bullies of our own brain so we will absolutely have you come back and talk about the what happens and what actually breaks in your business and your brain when things go better I've been expected and you scale too fast. Okay boss two things before you go first the anti-planter is the real deal I literally hugged mine when it arrived and Danny sized it that way on purpose it's not really a planner not a workbook not more homework for your brain it's a hundred plus strategies organized by how you're actually feeling because the problem was never that you needed to try harder go get the original at the link in the show notes and second Danny and I are cooking up a part two so if you wanted to come back and talk about what actually breaks in your business and brain when you scale way faster than you expected to let me know there's a link for that in the show notes too and hey thanks (upbeat music)