Every business is vulnerable to copycats.
Our mission is to stop them in their tracks.
At Markably, we know you’re investing a lot in building your business. Your hard work and creativity deserve to be rewarded with growth and profits.
Copycats are everywhere looking for great ideas just like yours to copy, and when they do, the results can be catastrophic. Customers will be lost, advertising costs increase, and rebranding may even be necessary.
Every business needs protection against copycats.
My name is Cynthia Mason. I’m a trademark lawyer, founder and CEO of Markably, Inc., and I’m on a mission to arm every business with the tools necessary to protect their brands from copycats.
I believe that strong protection against copycats shouldn’t require insider knowledge of trademark laws to achieve, and it shouldn’t cost a lot of money. Entrepreneurs and small businesses need this protection just as much as big corporations. That’s why I’ve taken my years of experience in protecting the big brands and I’ve built an online platform that makes it easy and affordable for businesses of all shapes and sizes to register and monitor their names, logos and taglines.
Markably was a long-time in the making
The Markably platform is based on close to 20-years of knowledge and experience in protecting trademarks. In 2002, I started my career as a Bay Street trademark lawyer, working with a very brilliant, if very old school trademark agent.
Picture the scene:
Walls upon walls lined with boxes of files, a room full of secretaries diligently typing away, an antiquated, manual billing and tracking system, and the ever-present Dictaphone.
Yes, Dictaphone.
BUT. Having been in the game a long time, this trademark agent also had a book of clients that would knock your socks off, and he had them for a very good reason. He became my trusted mentor.
Unfortunately, my mentor was not invincible, and health failed him. While he was away on a leave of absence, I was at the helm as the only other lawyer his clients knew and trusted.
I was ill-prepared. And didn’t ask for it. But I knew I had it.
And I knew this for sure – there would be no Dictaphones in my future (I still cringe at the sound of my own voice).
I changed his system completely. I did what I guess some people would refer to as bringing his business into the modern world.
Updating filing systems. Creating templates that can cut time on customization. Streamlining workflows. Oh, and I turned his antiquated billing system upside down – and in a good way! Billing increased and efficiencies were prioritized. I breathed easier and slept better at night.
And that should’ve been my “A-HA!” moment!
But it was 18 years ago. I didn’t know how to A-HA this into something spectacular. I do now. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
By going through that process of “re-stacking the wood” so to speak – at that firm, I realized that I could, THEORETICALLY, do this same thing for everyone. Because who doesn’t if they are deeply passionate? And I am told only the brave venture out on their own. So I must be brave, because after 12-years, I left and grew my own bricks and mortar boutique trademark law firm, Mason PC. The true training grounds in which I flexed my unfettered superpowers.
I streamlined my OWN processes over the years.
It’s funny, this drive I have to rearrange and reorganize everything as often as it needs. It’s not a perfectionist thing. I mean, I’m not Swiss, and I’m certainly no Marie Kondo. It’s not like I can tell if there is a glitch in the Matrix. I just find the errors. They jump out at me. I find – and fix – mistakes or inefficiencies.
And that is my why.
If you know an easier way, how can you NOT tell people about it? How can you NOT share it?
As the online world evolved, I realized what I called ‘housekeeping’ was actually a system. Systems are what make one half of the population glaze over. And the other half of the population the energy needed to put on that superhero cape and protect the brilliance of the people whose eyes have, in fact, glazed over. Because those are the people who have the ideas.
And the idea of offering the easiest online brand protection to those bands of renegades and game-changers excited me and elevated my own belief in myself. I took the makings of the perfect trademark registration system I had on my hands, and I smithed it. I put my head down and built a comprehensive online trademark registration and monitoring system.
And that is actually how Markably was born.
Today, protecting your brand is more important than ever. It is the age of the mind. Of Dragon’s Den dreams. And runaway successes. And that little idea you had that has kept your family fed for years. It is valid. Protect it.
Markably is technology I can’t believe I have breathed into reality. I feel comfortable finally saying you can easily and affordably take the hassle – and the risk – out of registering and monitoring your names, logos and taglines.
