When Copycats Strike: Small Business Intellectual Property Lessons
From the very start, I wanted our conversation to get to the heart not just of what makes the Anti-Planner unique, but why its creation was such a radical, personal act.
I asked Dani to share the origin story behind the Anti-Planner: what made her, a self-confessed consumer of endless planners, productivity tools, and self-help systems, decide to reinvent the wheel. Her answer was both familiar and revelatory.
Somebody Stole My Sh*t: Copycats, Counterfeiters and Protecting What You've Built
As the host of the ADHD-ish™ Podcast, I'm always excited to sit down with innovators, creators, and fellow ADHDers whose ideas have made a real difference—both in the world and, selfishly, in my own messy life. In a recent episode, I was joined by Dani Donovan, whose Anti-Planner has become nothing less than a cult favorite within the ADHD community. If you don't already know Dani Donovan, you're missing out on a rare voice—irreverent, empathetic, and staggeringly honest about the intersections between creative work, living with ADHD, and the all-too-frequent heartbreaks of small business ownership. Her story is a masterclass in what happens when you build something meaningful and have to defend it from intellectual property theft.
From the very start, I wanted our conversation to get to the heart not just of what makes the Anti-Planner unique, but why its creation was such a radical, personal act. I asked Dani to share the origin story behind the Anti-Planner: what made her, a self-confessed consumer of endless planners, productivity tools, and self-help systems, decide to reinvent the wheel. Her answer was both familiar and revelatory. Like so many of us with ADHD, she had eagerly purchased every tool and trick on the market, only to watch her enthusiasm fade after a few weeks. "I am the person who has bought so many planners," Dani confessed, describing the frustration and shame that comes from buying solutions that never quite stick. The insight was personal, but also communal: the real problem wasn't just distraction, but perfectionism, emotional overwhelm, and the constant sense of failure that shadows inconsistency. This is the emotional core of small business ownership for creatives with ADHD.
As I listened, I found myself nodding along—this wasn't just her story; it was mine, and it was that of countless listeners. But what set Dani Donovan apart was her refusal to accept the narrative of personal weakness or blame. Instead, she reverse-engineered her own struggles, designing the Anti-Planner around the true bottlenecks: not lack of desire, but a failure of most tools to address the emotional cores of procrastination and overwhelm. The Anti-Planner isn't just a scheduler; it's a "productivity spell book" with over a hundred strategies, each one matched to a nuanced emotional state. "It's like a Swiss Army knife of procrastination-busting strategies," she explained, and anyone who's ever stared blankly at a to-do list, paralyzed by some hard-to-name resistance, immediately recognized the power of that approach.
From my perspective as both a former therapist and business coach, I wanted to highlight something else that makes Dani’s work different: the tangible care invested in every detail. When my own copy of the Anti-Planner arrived, the first thing I did was hug it—I later found out that this was literally by design, as Dani had obsessively debated everything from the size (therapeutic pillow-sized!) to the paper stock and gold foil cover. This wasn't just about aesthetics; it was about reducing friction for ADHDers, creating something that begged to be picked up, scribbled in, and loved.
Our perspectives were strikingly aligned about the emotional labor embedded in creative entrepreneurship—yet where things got interesting was in the territory of betrayal and defense. When we moved into the subject of counterfeiters—those soulless opportunists who had ripped off all of Dani's hard work and begun selling cheap knockoffs under her name—I could feel the conversation deepen and change. The pain was palpable as Dani described the initial wave of confusion and horror: angry messages from buyers who thought the shoddy, typo-strewn fakes were her own product, the one-star reviews tanking her carefully built reputation, the visceral sense of violation. This is the dark side of small business ownership that no one talks about—the reality of intellectual property theft. But something else emerged, too—a determination not to surrender her story, nor the value of her ideas.
As we explored the financial realities, our dialogue moved from emotional validation to practical strategy. Dani didn't shy away from disclosing the eye-watering costs—over $40,000 a year—to employ ongoing monitoring and takedown services, a necessity just to claw her intellectual property back from the digital open market. Here, our perspectives sharpened into a shared reality: if you create, you must protect what you create. I recognized my own reluctance toward trademarking and legal paperwork in her early hesitation, only to find myself called out (lovingly) for the universal ADHD tendency to delay or under-prioritize "just in case" safeguards, until it's far too late. Getting a trademark isn't optional—it's essential armor for small business ownership.
Yet, there was also a gentle divergence when we discussed the aftermath—the lasting psychological blow of being copied, the way it chips away at creative innocence. I reflected on the impossibility of fully "moving on," since, as Dani pointed out, the threat of intellectual property theft never really goes away. Her Anti-Planner will always be a target; my podcast might always need defending. In this, we became co-conspirators—encouraging each other (and, by extension, our listeners) to not only safeguard our creations through trademark protection and legal defense, but also to claim the full value of what we offer. I was struck, again and again, by her resilience, the willingness to turn the worst moments—viral counterfeits, shocked indignation—into teachable stories for the community.
The episode wasn't just an exchange of mutual respect; it was an alignment—a living example of how creators with ADHD can advocate for each other and ourselves. We both agreed: you need to copyright, to trademark, to prepare as best you can—and to be ready, still, when the worst happens. But even more, we found common ground in the importance of emotional transparency. As Dani admitted, it wasn't until she shared the raw, tearful reality of being ripped off that her community truly rallied around her, spreading the message not just of what to buy, but of why these issues matter. This is what small business ownership really requires: vulnerability alongside protection.
For anyone building, creating, or dreaming with ADHD, I hope this episode illuminated both the inevitability of risk and the surprising power of vulnerability. If there's one thing I want listeners to remember, it's that what you've built isn't just worth protecting—it's worth celebrating, defending, and, when necessary, grieving. As we wrapped up, both Dani and I were quick to acknowledge the ridiculous expectations we often carry, the voices that whisper we should have known better, done more, been more prepared. But we also recognized the power of post-traumatic growth: learning, adapting, and coming back stronger.
So to every creative, visionary, or chaotic soul out there: protect your work through trademark registration and legal safeguards, trust your gut, find your community, and never underestimate the impact of what you create—especially when it feels like the world is working overtime to take it from you. Small business ownership with ADHD means building something meaningful and defending it fiercely.
Feel free to DM me on LinkedIn or send me an email at diann@diannwingertcoaching.com. I'd love to hear your thoughts!
If you'd like to hear the full episode on the ADHD-ish ™ Podcast, you can do that here.
