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I think Silicon valley's biggest contribution is innovation. All the Chinese or Indian startups I see (no matter how big their size) are generally China's answ

I think Silicon valley's biggest contribution is innovation. All the Chinese or Indian startups I see (no matter how big their size) are generally China's answer to Uber/WhatsApp/Facebook or India's answer to Amazon. I've yet to see one startup which is America's answer to some chinese/indian startup. I hope that day comes soon.

faitswulff 9y ago
...perhaps except for messaging apps. Messaging apps in America are almost all trying to emulate WeChat's success as a standalone platform in China.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- superasn 9y ago
  I did a quick Google search and see that Whatsapp was founded in 2009, one year before wechat, which has similar features (but please correct me if I'm wrong).
  - airza 9y ago
    No, they don't have the same features. That's why he described WeChat as a platform rather than a messaging client- the extent to which it dominates online life in China has no analogue in the US.
  - stevenjohns 9y ago
    WeChat is crazy big in China, to the point where you use it to pay for almost anything. It has allowed even the extremely rural to digitise their payments - every stall has a QR code that you can scan and transfer money to. The payment feature scales up very quickly, allowing you to do everything from book cabs through the app through to splitting restaurant bills with other people. It's more than just a messaging app - it's more like a mash-up of WhatsApp, PayPal, Twitter and Facebook. Things that WeChat had before WhatsApp were things like "Moments" which WhatsApp adopted quite recently (and in a more simpler way) as "Status"[0] and they also had very strong business integration which WhatsApp only recently began to flirt with through WhatsApp for Business[1]. [0] https://faq.whatsapp.com/en/android/26000031/ https://faq.whatsapp.com/en/android/26000031/ [1] https://blog.whatsapp.com/10000637/Introducing-the-WhatsApp-Business-App https://blog.whatsapp.com/10000637/Introducing-the-WhatsApp-...
    - yourapostasy 9y ago
      > The payment feature scales up very quickly, allowing you to do everything from book cabs through the app through to splitting restaurant bills with other people. Weixin Pay's pricing for money handling seems pretty competitive compared to Western systems. 0.1% to transfer out of their system to your bank if you are transferring >$3200 USD, and 0.6% to process a payment [1]. I wonder when Weixin Pay and startups like Payoneer [2] will get tired of the friction imposed by the current banking interchange systems, and set up their own identity and interchange solution to start breaking 1% on all of a transaction life cycle's service fees (from payer removing from their account and paying, to payee accepting and debiting to their account, perhaps including forex conversion, to final settlement). [1] https://chinachannel.co/take-wechat-payments-small-business/ https://chinachannel.co/take-wechat-payments-small-business/ [2] https://www.payoneer.com/fees/ https://www.payoneer.com/fees/
  - addicted 9y ago
    WhatsApp didnt have the features WeChat did. For example, Apple's iMessage and Facebook's Messenger development over the past few years has basically been to become increasingly like WeChat. Whether it's stickers or payments or animations, etc.
    - taoistextremist 9y ago
      Facebook is ripping off a larger variety of apps than WeChat, it seems more like they're trying to push into Snapchat's market share. I'm not familiar with payments being a feature on iMessage or Messenger, though. Unless you mean just the money transfers to friends, which existed on Facebook's desktop Messenger first IIRC, so it doesn't appear to be ripping off WeChat (which in my experience doesn't really support money transfers in quite the same way, unless we're talking about hongbao). Also, weren't stickers a thing on Kakao Talk and LINE before WeChat?
      - seanmcdirmid 9y ago
        Wechat supposedly ripped off a lot of features from LINE, but since LINE is a Japanese/Asian thing, most Americans know even less about that than WeChat.
        devsafrun 9y ago
        line is from naver (korean company), but apparently no one in korea uses line... (100% kakao) surprised to see Line everywhere else in asia though (seems initial popularity decides a lot for these messenger apps - or some extremely unique features that can't be copied)
        taoistextremist 9y ago
        Line was originally Japanese, it was just acquired by a Korean company, explaining the lack of market share in that country. I think Kakao predates pretty much all modern messengers, including Kik, so it's kind of surprising they never reached out of Korea very much.
  - forkLding 9y ago
    wechat is a bit different, not a good one to talk about, it was started by Tencent QQ Messenger (From back in the period when everyone had a messenger client like MSN, Yahoo, etc.) and was based on similar communication principles with a mobile twist.
- Larrikin 9y ago
  Isn't WeChat a LINE clone, which wasn't exactly innovating but simply taking advantage of a cultural niche.
gumby 9y ago
> I've yet to see one startup which is America's answer to some chinese/indian startup. I hope that day comes soon. What about Twitch, which makes its money from sponsorship and virtual gifts to streamers, a model pioneered in China and then Korea? Or the US esports leagues which copy, again Korea and China? There are many technologies which appear later in the US but Americans think are indigenous (and the reverse as well -- I don't mean to pick on the US, simply responding to your comment). Consider chip cards (commonplace in Europe for 20+ years, still not well adopted in the US) or text messaging (adopted very late in the US).
- plopz 9y ago
  I know of AfreecaTV that launched in 2005, and Twitch (Justin.tv) which launched in 2007. But what was the pioneering China platform?
  - nimbyest 9y ago
    yy.com I believe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YY.com https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YY.com
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- maruhan2 9y ago
  Very true. As a Korean, it really annoyed me that there were products that Korea or Japan had the first foot out on but could not go globally because it's not based on USA. Although nowadays I don't think that's so much the case. Currently, I think America has more ideas coming out because it really is more innovative
john_moscow 9y ago
I think there are 2 things at play here: 1. Survivor bias. It's always easier to adapt a successful business model to your regional market by applying minor tweaks to it, than to create something completely from scratch. 2. Market size. The U.S. GDP is almost 10x the size in the Indian one. If you are creating an online business based on some non-regionally-specific idea, there is just no reason for you not to target U.S. first.
m3talsmith 9y ago
That's practically died. Startups that come out now are mainly seeking luxury crowds or user attrition from facebook/whatsapp/etc. We are innovation saturated with the few areas left to innovate taking more time and funding than investors are willing to invest in. You can see this pattern in the demands to work faster/harder for the glory of being an entrepreneur, or fail and lose it all until your next quick idea...
echevil 9y ago
Well if you ever used any Chinese apps recently you’ll find they are nothing like anything you’re familiar with. Many major Chinese companies might have started with copying some idea from Silicon Valley, but that was long time ago. China now has an entire ecosystem of softaware/hardware/services that’s different from the rest of the world. Speaking of American startups copying from China, I’ll give you an example: https://www.spin.pm https://www.spin.pm

faitswulff 9y ago

...perhaps except for messaging apps. Messaging apps in America are almost all trying to emulate WeChat's success as a standalone platform in China.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
superasn 9y ago
I did a quick Google search and see that Whatsapp was founded in 2009, one year before wechat, which has similar features (but please correct me if I'm wrong).
- airza 9y ago
  No, they don't have the same features. That's why he described WeChat as a platform rather than a messaging client- the extent to which it dominates online life in China has no analogue in the US.
- stevenjohns 9y ago
  WeChat is crazy big in China, to the point where you use it to pay for almost anything. It has allowed even the extremely rural to digitise their payments - every stall has a QR code that you can scan and transfer money to. The payment feature scales up very quickly, allowing you to do everything from book cabs through the app through to splitting restaurant bills with other people. It's more than just a messaging app - it's more like a mash-up of WhatsApp, PayPal, Twitter and Facebook. Things that WeChat had before WhatsApp were things like "Moments" which WhatsApp adopted quite recently (and in a more simpler way) as "Status"[0] and they also had very strong business integration which WhatsApp only recently began to flirt with through WhatsApp for Business[1]. [0] https://faq.whatsapp.com/en/android/26000031/ https://faq.whatsapp.com/en/android/26000031/ [1] https://blog.whatsapp.com/10000637/Introducing-the-WhatsApp-Business-App https://blog.whatsapp.com/10000637/Introducing-the-WhatsApp-...
  - yourapostasy 9y ago
    > The payment feature scales up very quickly, allowing you to do everything from book cabs through the app through to splitting restaurant bills with other people. Weixin Pay's pricing for money handling seems pretty competitive compared to Western systems. 0.1% to transfer out of their system to your bank if you are transferring >$3200 USD, and 0.6% to process a payment [1]. I wonder when Weixin Pay and startups like Payoneer [2] will get tired of the friction imposed by the current banking interchange systems, and set up their own identity and interchange solution to start breaking 1% on all of a transaction life cycle's service fees (from payer removing from their account and paying, to payee accepting and debiting to their account, perhaps including forex conversion, to final settlement). [1] https://chinachannel.co/take-wechat-payments-small-business/ https://chinachannel.co/take-wechat-payments-small-business/ [2] https://www.payoneer.com/fees/ https://www.payoneer.com/fees/
- addicted 9y ago
  WhatsApp didnt have the features WeChat did. For example, Apple's iMessage and Facebook's Messenger development over the past few years has basically been to become increasingly like WeChat. Whether it's stickers or payments or animations, etc.
  - taoistextremist 9y ago
    Facebook is ripping off a larger variety of apps than WeChat, it seems more like they're trying to push into Snapchat's market share. I'm not familiar with payments being a feature on iMessage or Messenger, though. Unless you mean just the money transfers to friends, which existed on Facebook's desktop Messenger first IIRC, so it doesn't appear to be ripping off WeChat (which in my experience doesn't really support money transfers in quite the same way, unless we're talking about hongbao). Also, weren't stickers a thing on Kakao Talk and LINE before WeChat?
    - seanmcdirmid 9y ago
      Wechat supposedly ripped off a lot of features from LINE, but since LINE is a Japanese/Asian thing, most Americans know even less about that than WeChat.
      - devsafrun 9y ago
        line is from naver (korean company), but apparently no one in korea uses line... (100% kakao) surprised to see Line everywhere else in asia though (seems initial popularity decides a lot for these messenger apps - or some extremely unique features that can't be copied)
        taoistextremist 9y ago
        Line was originally Japanese, it was just acquired by a Korean company, explaining the lack of market share in that country. I think Kakao predates pretty much all modern messengers, including Kik, so it's kind of surprising they never reached out of Korea very much.
- forkLding 9y ago
  wechat is a bit different, not a good one to talk about, it was started by Tencent QQ Messenger (From back in the period when everyone had a messenger client like MSN, Yahoo, etc.) and was based on similar communication principles with a mobile twist.
Larrikin 9y ago
Isn't WeChat a LINE clone, which wasn't exactly innovating but simply taking advantage of a cultural niche.

gumby 9y ago

> I've yet to see one startup which is America's answer to some chinese/indian startup. I hope that day comes soon. What about Twitch, which makes its money from sponsorship and virtual gifts to streamers, a model pioneered in China and then Korea? Or the US esports leagues which copy, again Korea and China? There are many technologies which appear later in the US but Americans think are indigenous (and the reverse as well -- I don't mean to pick on the US, simply responding to your comment). Consider chip cards (commonplace in Europe for 20+ years, still not well adopted in the US) or text messaging (adopted very late in the US).

plopz 9y ago
I know of AfreecaTV that launched in 2005, and Twitch (Justin.tv) which launched in 2007. But what was the pioneering China platform?
- nimbyest 9y ago
  yy.com I believe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YY.com https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YY.com
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
maruhan2 9y ago
Very true. As a Korean, it really annoyed me that there were products that Korea or Japan had the first foot out on but could not go globally because it's not based on USA. Although nowadays I don't think that's so much the case. Currently, I think America has more ideas coming out because it really is more innovative

john_moscow 9y ago

I think there are 2 things at play here: 1. Survivor bias. It's always easier to adapt a successful business model to your regional market by applying minor tweaks to it, than to create something completely from scratch. 2. Market size. The U.S. GDP is almost 10x the size in the Indian one. If you are creating an online business based on some non-regionally-specific idea, there is just no reason for you not to target U.S. first.

m3talsmith 9y ago

That's practically died. Startups that come out now are mainly seeking luxury crowds or user attrition from facebook/whatsapp/etc. We are innovation saturated with the few areas left to innovate taking more time and funding than investors are willing to invest in. You can see this pattern in the demands to work faster/harder for the glory of being an entrepreneur, or fail and lose it all until your next quick idea...

echevil 9y ago

Well if you ever used any Chinese apps recently you’ll find they are nothing like anything you’re familiar with. Many major Chinese companies might have started with copying some idea from Silicon Valley, but that was long time ago. China now has an entire ecosystem of softaware/hardware/services that’s different from the rest of the world. Speaking of American startups copying from China, I’ll give you an example: https://www.spin.pm https://www.spin.pm