Copycat ideas make billions of dollars.

Hi friends,

Today I am going to share an interesting business story. You may not have heard of them, but Alexander, Marc, and Oliver Samwer are infamous in the business world for their “copycat” strategy. And believe it or not, this unapologetically unoriginal approach has earned them millions.

Their business model is simple: find a successful company, copy its idea, launch a near-identical version in a different market, and cash out. Sounds cheeky, right? But it worked like a charm.

Take eBay, for example. In the late ‘90s, the brothers noticed the growing success of eBay in the U.S. So what did they do? They built Alando, an eBay clone, and launched it in Germany. Just six months later, they sold Alando to eBay for a whopping $43 million. That’s right—they essentially created a copycat company, nurtured it for a few months, and flipped it for millions.

In 2007, the brothers launched Rocket Internet, a startup incubator that has replicated this strategy on a much larger scale. Under Rocket Internet, the Samwers have cloned companies like:

• Amazon: Their version was Jumia, aimed at Africa.

• Zappos: Enter Zalando, Europe’s answer to the online shoe store.

• Groupon: They created Citydeal, which Groupon eventually acquired.

They even tried to replicate Airbnb (with Wimdu) and Uber (with Easy Taxi). The secret to their success? Speed. The Samwers don’t wait around to see if a trend will take off. Once they identify a booming business model, they move fast, sometimes launching their copycat business within months. Today they are worth 1.2 Billion dollars. 

What do you think about their business model? Do you use any copied idea company product in your daily life?

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