Making A Killing From Creating Clones
Nov 7th, 2011 by adrianlai
Many people have tried and failed in creating clones of successful internet companies such as Groupon and Facebook. Except the Samwer Brothers. These three German siblings have made a living from creating clones of internet companies from the US inEurope, and selling them to the original company. For instance, they started and sold Alando, a European clone of eBay, in 1999 to eBay for $50 million in shares. Their most recent venture MyCityDeal, a clone of Groupon, was sold to Groupon for nearly $100 million.
Many would argue their strategy to create clones is disdainful, but I believe this is an ingenius idea. After all, there can only be so many ideas as revolutionary as Facebook, Groupon, and eBay. It is incredibly difficult to come up with these great ideas that have such profound effect. From a pure business point of view, this is perhaps the easiest way to make a profit. All that needs to be done is to create a business from a proven business model, only in a different country. However disgusting this may seem to purist fans of innovation, I believe the Samwer brothers deserve all the credits in the world.
More about the Samwer brothers can be found here.