Lying matters. We're not talking about some kind of white lie to make someone feel better either. It's lying to make money, which we should all agree is bad.
They certainly make it appear that way, but it's a lie.
I've seen very similar dollies more than a decade ago, as did others in this thread. Their patents are either invalid or cover some minor aspect to make an impression that they invented the three wheeled stair-climbing mechanism.
What they're claiming to have invented is a specific folding dolly that uses the 3-wheel mechanism.
> The UpCart ® line of products solve this problem with a unique line of all-terrain folding carts and hand trucks that have been engineered to reduce effort while going up and down stairs and over irregular terrain
A casual reading of this sentence leaves the reader with the impression that their carts are unique because of how they reduce the effort of going up and down stairs and over irregular terrain. This is corroborated further by other messaging such as their logo.
However, that is a lie. There have been similar other carts with exact same wheel setup.
The only unique part of their product is the folding mechanism, and they are clearly trying to project that uniqueness onto the wheel mechanism. And it will definitely work on people who have never seen such wheel setup before.
Just because you'd prefer others be more stringent with it doesn't mean that everyone else is lying.
A cable package or car loan does not magically become a GREAT DEAL just because a billboard said so. We're just used to constant lies and aggrandizement in advertising, so all that bullshit looks normal, entirely expected now. It's still bullshit though.
The message is, whether or not it is original (looks to be a no), is how he and his partner managed to succeed in launching the product and earning millions in revenue.
I take it that most people here aren't developing, launching, and marketing their own products and creating a company out of it, and don't really care about learning anything from the article.
People in general, but especially anonymous people on the internet are more interested in calling fraud, and telling you why you have no right to success.
I see the same thing on /r/entrepreneurs, MMA forums, YouTube comments, and here. Doesn't matter how hard you worked or how successful you are, even if you're the top fighter in the world who trained for a decade taking hundreds of blows to the head - people will make sideways excuses for themselves by shitting on you.
Meanwhile reality asserts itself and this guy and his partner has made millions by themselves and have established their own independence.
And the takeaway from HN is "My grandma used this 3 decades ago," and "I don't like the text and phrasing on his website."
The vast, vast majority of startups aren't inventing anything new that didn't exist before, either. You don't need to come up with a novel invention to have a successful business; it's usually sufficient just to do something at lower cost, or do marketing better.