Klarna Tried To Sue Me: What Happens When A Billion-Dollar Corporation Tries To Bully A Startup
Klarna tried to sue me — or at least they threatened to.
They threatened to sue me because my teeny tiny little startup agency was “infringing on their trademark”. They sent their big, scary, over-priced fat cat lawyers in to scare off the little guys.
A true tale of David and Goliath.
So let me set the scene.
Why Klarna Sued Me.
I started my business, Klowt, a personal branding agency in August 2020. The height of the pandemic. People were losing their jobs left, right and centre and this genius thought it was a good time to start a business.
But it worked.
People loved it. We landed our first two clients in week one and haven’t looked back. We grew quickly — and organically I might add. No capital investment, no seed-stage rounds. Every single penny that went into the business we earned… and by we I mean me and my incredible then-intern (now Social Media Manager) Danielle.
Fast forward to September 5th 2022.
“Just pinged you a crazy email,” my EA said on WhatsApp.
My immediate response? Laughter.
“Well that’s my post (content) sorted for tomorrow” I replied.
I thought it was a joke. But there it was, in big letter-headed print: “Cease and Desist: Klarna”.
Pink and purple are NOT the same colour.
The initial gripe that Klarna had with us was our logo.
Their brand name starts with a K. Our brand name starts with a K.
So naturally, they demanded we stop using our logo because apparently they are the global owners of the letter K. Oh, behave. You can’t trademark “K”. And objectively, our fonts, the curvature and effects of our fonts are not even similar.
The only similarity in any of our branding is the K itself. Thank you, next.
So after trying to scare us with that bunch of rubbish, they came for our colours.
Purple, they told us, was the same colour as their pink. And moreover, if we continued to use purple the average “Klarna customer would be confused” by the similarities between the two colours.
How bloody insulting.
Do you mean to tell me that you deem your average customer so stupid that they’d be unable to identify the difference between purple and pink?
But none of this really matters, does it? Because Klarna didn’t really believe that Klowt infringed on their logo trademark or that purple and pink were the same colours.
Because if they did, they’d have realised we’ve been using our “K.” longer than they’ve had their “K.” trademarked. Giving us an earlier right. And also, there are thousands of OTHER companies that use “K.” as their logo. Do you mean to tell me that you plan to sue all of them too?
No, of course not.
No, this entire exercise was about a billion-dollar company throwing its weight around.
It’s bulls*it. I knew it. They knew it.
And yet here I was — startup founder of a tiny team with comparatively tiny resources, starring down the barrel of a potentially lengthy and expensive defence case if I tried to fight it. Could I even afford to fight it? Klarna is a multi-billion dollar corporation with unlimited resources (something they reminded me of in their Cease and Desist). And me? I was just a little personal branding agency based out of a tiny unit in the back end of Covent Garden.
But I’m also pretty stubborn.
And I hate bullies.
So I told them to go f*ck themselves.
I called a lawyer who worked for a big fancy corporation and got them to draft a response letter, which told Klarna to go f*ck themselves — legally speaking.
I recorded a video which I posted to:
Reiterating how much I wanted them to go f*ck themselves. And now, I reiterate that point again in this Medium article.
Instead of cowing to their corporate bullying tactics, I respectfully told them to go f*ck themselves and provided evidence as to why they should go f*ck themselves.
And do you know what? We haven’t heard back from them.
I wonder why.
Never let the bullies win.
So now, smug as hell, I write this article in the corner of my home office, sitting next to — you guessed it — a framed copy of the Klarna Cease and Desist letter.
It’s like a trophy.
A reminder to stand up for yourself — and for what is right. I could have been scared off by that letter. We could have been scared that they’d suck us into a legal battle and take all our money simply from defending ourselves. For defending our RIGHT to use OUR logo.
We could have just rolled over and agreed to stop using our branding. But that would have been wrong because what they accused us of wasn’t true.
So instead, we did our research, got solid legal advice and came back swinging — and won.
Today, our big, neon purple K. logo still decorates our offices, as bright and bold as we are.
I guess the moral of the story is people — and companies — will always try and bring you down when you start winning.
Don’t f*cking let them.
Thanks for reading!
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