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To be fair, this isn't exactly uncommon in the history of business. If I remember correctly, in Drucker's Innovation and Entrepreneurship, this exact phenomeno
by rpeden 15y ago
To be fair, this isn't exactly uncommon in the history of business.
If I remember correctly, in Drucker's Innovation and Entrepreneurship, this exact phenomenon is discussed as a counterpoint to the first-mover advantage. It is often easier to let someone else do the hard work of verifying that the market for a particular class of product exists. Once you've seen what went well for them and what didn't, you can learn from their successes and mistakes and use that data to one-up them.
From the perspective of Turntable.fm, it isn't necessarily bad news either. If your product is successful enough to inspire someone to compete with you, it might just be a positive indicator of the viability of the market you are trying to serve.
- kwis 15y agoBeing a fast-follower is often an excellent strategy. I've long thought that somebody will make a fortune by setting up a company that clones successful America-centric startups into Europe, Asia and/or Brazil; using a fast-follower strategy to test core ideas, but then implementing them in untapped markets.
- bravura 15y agoThe Samwer brothers in Berlin (European Founders Fund) do exactly that: http://www.economist.com/node/21525394 http://www.economist.com/node/21525394 The have cloned AirBNB (Wimdu), for example. I seem to recall that they had several large exits by cloning sites like eBay and then selling to the company they cloned, but I can't find the article right now. In a sense, if an American company doesn't know how to penetrate a particular international market, then these clones actually do add value.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- fbailey 15y agoRocket Internet in germany is doing that