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Great article as always Glen!
Yeah, when I read that article about the German brothers who made billions of dollars by cloning successful ecommerce businesses it definitely got my attention.
I remember meeting someone about a year ago from Sweden who was working in Asia for a group who also did something similar with cloning big ecommerce sites. I never registered that there was so much money to be made.
It definitely helps to be among the first. A niche can get saturated quickly, but as you pointed out, when you take something to an entirely new country and you’re one of the first in that country, the potential is huge.
I think we might have to put a team together and start cloning some businesses 😉
I should tell you my article ideas before they go live in future 😉
Thanks for the comment bro!
You know it’s not about cloning, what’s the fun in that? as the author states at the end of his article lots of people said they were going to give him prototypes or whatever, but only one did.we have a very unique model for delivery in the San Francisco area and we’re launching it now. our caveat is the expertise of our team, the years of experience we bring to the table no one else in the world doing what we will be doing can match what we have right now. that’s the key right now. once we launch in the US we scale as quickly as possible then moved to other countries.years ago being in the music and entertainment industry everybody and their mother had an idea. I had a decent level of success and a lot of great resources. many many people would bring me ideas and I would always ask them to put it in writing and send me a proposal. if I had a dollar for every person who had an idea and did not send me a proposal I’d be sitting on a pile of the great start up capital right now!execution is key but innovation is just as important. where is the innovation when you copy someone else’s idea? it doesn’t exist. even if you try to make it better in the back of your mind you’re always going to know they had it first. Great article.
Cool stuff, appreciate your efforts 🙂
Thanks Bassem!
Haha, Taco. I’m so childish
It’s my test to see who really read the article 😉
Haha!
Really nice article.
A little bit long 😛 but still reading it.
Anyhow, thanks for sharing 🙂
Too short in my opinion 😉
Thanks for stopping by!
Next time do it longer !! 🙂
Want to read you more and more
Not sure if you’re being sarcastic…
Lol.
Wouldn’t Facebook be a clone (Myspace, Friendster), Google (Alta Vista, other search engines), Reddit (4Chan) as well?
Definitely a pivot in my mind, David 🙂
Hi Glenn, I just finished your article and wanted to thank you. It’s great and it motivates me even more to continue doing online projects and making money with it.
Great to here, P-J!
Thank you so much for taking the time to comment 🙂
Hey Glen, I have been kicking myself over the past week for great ideas I had and never implemented. I read down your post and told myself this one is for me. I’m guilty as charged and have started shaking things up. Thanks again for the great insights and the push.
_gugu
Best of luck, Gugu!
I will get to work.
This is big.
You’ve got this!
I literally was just saying to a friend of mine that I want to go to the grocery store to only buy food with a shelf life or that is fresh. But toiletries, shampoo, razors, paper towels, cleaning supplies, water, cereal, etc. I want delivered to my door so that I don’t have to be in Walmart with all the other savages.
Thanks for the article. Your appearance in my inbox I can truly say is the only ‘marketing’ email that I thoroughly get pumped to read.
Thank you so much Peepers, that really means a lot to me!
Edit: Lol’d at savages.
Haha! great timing with this article.
Im actually doing it right now after browsing on Similarweb last month.
Would love to hear what you’re working on if it’s not too secretive 😉
Can’t you get sued by one of these big sites for coping their exact site down to the pixels?
I would have thought so but I guess not.
I’m not sure how much web design is really copyrightable.
“Did you enjoy this post? Please leave a comment below…”
Hell YES I enjoyed this post. You are the ‘Master Investigator’ bar none.
Will be trolling back through all the links next.
BTW what is that tool you used to allow push notifications?
Thanks as always – I lurk more than post – ever a fan :))
Great ideas and a great post like always…I like the way you think, you always tell us the good stuff and in my mind I know this work…but the $$$ and satisfaction quite out-weigh the stress of starting this ventures…thanks!!!
Cheers Akinola!
Ok, I’ve just spend a minute or so trying to start my comment by saying how awesome the article is. Again.
Though I’m too busy to even think about starting another project, these articles are providing me with dozens of angles from which I can improve the ones I’m working on. My partner and I are creating a new website that aims to deliver online courses. Nope, delete that- we were creating a website about one course, only to have a chat five minutes ago realizing that this can become something substantially bigger.
Going to send you an email in a day or two, with more details.
No revenue cuts for now, only thanks 😀
Will look out for it in my inbox, Slavko.
Always great to see you here!
Great, meaty post Glen! The Hustle article doesn’t go into specifics, but the Sawmer bros started cloning Ebay way back in 1999 – lots more details in this Wired article: http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2012/04/features/inside-the-clone-factory/viewall
And more recent articles also note that many of their clones don’t succeed. But with all that money they can afford to take chances and fail because the winners win big. Ex: their Pinterest clone lasted a few months:
https://www.techinasia.com/failure-to-launch-5-rocket-internet-misfires
And here’s some more on what it’s like to be an employee:
http://www.halilkoklu.de/blog/5-reasons-why-working-for-rocket-internet-is-great.html
Will have to check these out.
Thanks for sharing, Carlo!
Great article, thank you Glen. One of the big “gooroos” cloning websites also said that he is cloning everything, even where the website’s traffic is coming from.
Very interesting 🙂
Again, a great Explanation!!!! and Ideas ready to implement!!
I Really like the way you research each and every topic of your ideas and giving away such precious information For FREE!!
Thank you so much for your research and ideas!!!
I Think, it’s time for us to make it big and rethink on our current Models of Revenues!!!
You’re very welcome, Shubham.
Thanks for the comment!
Great article Glen ! I was literally thinking about something similar a week ago … Time to make it happen !
Kill it, Francois!
You are my hero. Great Post again!
Thanks Lorenz 🙂
The point is not to have / hold the idea, you need to excute otherwise you got nothing,,,
Epic as usual Glen, Thanks.
Appreciate it, Hassan 🙂
Lol @ the “taco” mention in the post, that had me in tears. Great insights as always Glen, I especially liked the GasBuddy idea and am going to look into it a bit more 🙂
Hahaha
Thanks Viral!
This articles reminds me of the saying “Don’t reinvent the wheel”… and like someone added “just realign it”.
I’ve read quite a lot about Rocket Internet and I must say, I really admire their shameless approach towards cloning. Cloning is nothing new, after all Facebook built a better Myspace and the list goes on.
It’s refreshing how you present what we mostly already know — the angle, the twist.
Great article, Glen. Quite a lot to learn from it and all others you have posted.
I really appreciate that, Obase.
Thank you so much for this information!!!
You’re very welcome, Iva 🙂
Glen, You are the man. I sincerely appreciate the fact that you are willing to share your ideas with others. As for me I am in the process of getting my butt in gear and thinking about overseas. Having a little trouble with discovering how to do some of this but am motivated. I don’t think the article was too long. It takes time to unfold a great idea or ideas. I hope to continue seeing you as the bright light on my path to great ideas and success. Many thanks. Fred
I love your attitude, Fred.
Best of luck going forward!
Quality post Glen and team – even with the Taco!
A great research piece for the multilingual to twist to their use – if smart enough
Haha!
Cheers Tony 🙂
Glen, it’s so good to be your readers.
Like Peepers have mentioned, your email/articles is probably the only piece of content that I could finish reading getting pumped and excited about!
I started a ViralNova modelled site last year, I’m still working on it to build up the traffic.
Any tips would be appreciated!
Thank you Glen again for the awesome content!
Jeff
To be honest Jeff, I don’t think I have too much more to say on Viral Nova clones these days. You’ve just got to learn by doing 🙂
Best of luck with your ventures, and thanks so much for the kind words.
This shit is hilarious.
“If Amazon slightly changed their cart image or moved it just two pixels to the left we’d know and copy it.”
Shameless indeed.
These fools have me apprehensive to start my own original idea. But I guess they only copy the big dogs for now, save for Airbnb, etc.
Thanks for the post Glen.
Yeah I really wouldn’t worry too much about that, Aalim.
It’s the implementation that counts. They can’t do everything 🙂
Awesome article! I got a few ideas from it. I might try one in the real estate niche and see what else can be delivered to homes. Thanks!
Had a few emails about that one, Darius!
Hey Glen and Diggy,
So do you guys ever feel like you’re missing out on business opportunities like these when you’re in a different country every month? I would say it’s harder to build a massive disruptive business and an awesome team when you’re location independent.
Great article btw 🙂
Will
Honestly Will, it’s probably a blessing in disguise as we’re often guilty of taking on too many projects at once.
We do OK for now though 😉
Thank you!
This is an excellent article. I am working on this exact model of cloning as we speak for my under-served local population. Once everything is put together, the target is going to be entrepreneurs and marketers in smaller towns where the Uber and grubHub giants will not come. They will basically have a “business in a box” where they can immediately get up and running in no time and little money.
Sounds great, Candice!
Thanks for taking the time to leave a comment 🙂
Excellent post. What hit me the most was in the closing bit where you say how few people have taken action and brought to completion a finished product – at least a working prototype, from an idea you laid out pretty extensively in your last article. I think too much about competition, so this ‘gets my head straight’ a bit. Thanks.
It’s a shame really, but it’s the reality of most people.
Thanks again your articles are always inspiring.
Thank you Kurt!
Glenn nice article….but for me it’s not so much as coming up with an idea…it’s more where do I go to find investors….I would be willing to bet a lot of people feel the same way i do…
when you talk about start-ups you are not just talking about someone giving you an investment for the price of a domain name….in your article you’re talking millions……and i’m not in that circle of a bunch of Bill Gates type guys running around in my backyard….
i know you are not in the market of hand holding but how about a article on what to do to get a start-up going….not necessarily a step by step but resources that someone could use and contact…
a closed mouth will never get any food in it….so for me talking is not a problem…but who do i talk to?
For example the following are some excerpts from your article concerning money aquired to scale up or just get off the ground:
“After raising $250m in a single venture round in 2008, HomeAway CEO Brian Sharples…”
“Though it took a while for them to gain traction they secured $1m in funding in 2015 to grow their brand.”
“Just three months ago Ola raised $500m to help them dominate the taxi space in India”
I think you get the idea of my point…I may want too much too soon….
I know I probably should take rock climbing classes before i take on the Matterhorn…but I still have to know where to go for the classes….
Once again nice article….now I’m looking for the one you write that says….by the way go here and you will find Bill Gates cousins…..
You raise an interesting point, Will.
To be honest I don’t think you need investment to get any of these going. People generally look for investors as they need to grow quickly. You don’t have to grow fast.
You can either learn a lot of the skills yourself – anyone who can set-up a WordPress site could sell OnePress’s 24 hour rental viewing feature – or find partners to join you on the journey. Keep in mind that before you take an investment you will more than likely need some proof of concept anyway, so you’ll have to find a way to build your idea with or without the funds.
Exactly….excellent response….as a matter of fact after reading what I posted I have an idea from my post 🙂
Glenn you help even when you’re not trying…lol…
Hahaha.
Best of luck Will!
I had this idea before and I gave up thinking that I could not get it done. I’m ready to give it another try with a niche that is practically non-existent in the Caribbean. Here is my question: I live in Barbados. Would you create a site that targets Barbados (population 280,000) or would you create a site that targets the Caribbean (population of 3.9 million)?
Depends what you’re offering.
If you’re going the same route as OneRent then Barbados. If you’re doing daily deals then the Caribbean.
Really liked this post Glen. Living in Taiwan it’s such a microcosm but there’s still tons of money floating around and plenty of great “pivoting potential”.
One thing that hits me after reading most of your posts is “why doesn’t he start a Viperchill Incubator (Viperchillbator?)” program.
Not just some in-house content team for your own sites like some IMs but like a full-blown incubator with designers, engineers and marketers to take ideas from conception to reality. Would require a bit of capital up front, but instead of readers making a sweet Pomodoro why not the “Viperchilbator” make it in all it’s glory and probably cash out with big investment in the future?
Hey Erik, thank you!
One of my best friends just moved to Taiwan to work on his startup.
Honestly I think because so many of my ideas require people to be focused on generating traffic as well. It’s not just about the idea, it’s being passionate enough about it to get it out there. I can’t really teach that to people who don’t get excited about a project.
Glen i want to thank you for this awesome article. i remark every posts you’ve dropped it’s like a bomb.
really appreciated what you are doing for this community.this thing changes people’s lives.
Much appreciated, Constant!
As soon as I received your email will running read. Now it’s 2 am and I’m reading your post from start to finish!
Ps. I found the idea interesting gasoline, if something happens I notice.
Pss. Your e mails are read here in Brazil bro.
Great to hear where people are reading from, Claudinei.
Glen, you really nailed it down like always.
I was reading about the other day of RocketInternet, they made huge progress in the middle-east market especially in the past few years.
Cheers Azhar!
Glenn,
I think you nailed it with this quote “Ideas Are Worth Nothing at All”. Love it or Hate it, the guys are Rocket Internet seem to have the execution part of the business down and based on their market cap execution matters more than original ideas.
The ethical side of the debate is a little tricky too because a lot of the unicorns seem to take things we already do and make them more efficient at scale. Either way, competition is a good thing and the more companies continue to reduce friction on a global scale, the better our world should become. At least in theory 😉
Couldn’t agree with you more, Erik.
Thank you for the comment!
I’ve read an article in thehustle.co about Rocket Internet – dubbed as the “startup clone factory”.
Can’t help but cringe on their business model but Oliver Samwer’s opinion struck me, “..business is business. The company that makes the most money and pleases the most customers is the winner.” Soo true
Thank you for the great post. I’ve been lazy about a project I wanted to start but reading this article has made me realise I’m going to be a loser soon if I don’t take action. Although, I’m not in a situation to go after the ideas in this post, it sort of acts like a motivation for my other projects.
Thanks for taking the time to put this together.
Hi
Glen, that was a great article. I could see your research done on each information given which will surely give us a broader insight on Business Ideas to clone for countries.
After reading this article, i went ahead and searched online for similar ideas and clones, I interestingly found a site called Proven Logic ( http://provenlogic.com/ ) which is quite similar with your idea where they also do the same by finding out the best clone business ideas and make the clone of the original script and sell it for other people to start a similar business in their local market,.
Hope it adds more value to the readers, who thinks to start a business immediately.
Thanks
hiya, Glenn, how are you?
Just a tiny note: In the startup world ‘pivot’ means something quite different to the way you’ve used it here. It means an existing startup/business that alters path considerably with their business model.
Thought I’d feed it back in case you were planning on writing more, and people working in startups are within your target audience.
Hope all is very well,
dan barker
Glen are you show Groupon.com has not landed you a deal?
Glen,
Another fantastic post. Thanks.
(1) Keep them full-bodied.
(2) Some (probably most) of us do read all your your text–“tasty” food references and all.
(3) I agree with your reference that most new ideas and creations are scrambles and combos of others work, but very occasionally there are exceptions. One such exception is the concept of “Antifragile”, originated by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
(4) Mimicking successful business ideas is a good strategy (especially for early enough mimickers). In the 70s, 80s and 90s, early enough was multiple years. Now, I don’t know.
(5) Strict copying isn’t necessary (and isn’t right). At least be a little creative or different.
(6) I say this based on my own past business experience. I was once a partner in a small electronics startup. Two of my three partners had their own much larger related electronics company. They were very top-notch marketing experts before they started their “electronics” company. I know they could spell “volt” before they started and I am equally sure they didn’t care what it meant–that is what you hire engineers for. But, their strategy was to mimic successful products. Their secret being that they improved on the mimicked products (however slightly) plus supported and serviced their products well and usually better. This enabled them to grab significant market share from the established competitors.
Again, thanks.
Great post Glen,
thanks for sharing the knowledge and the ideas.
I can see a couple of business that I think can work very well in my area.
I’ll give it a try and I’ll let you know the results.
Hey Glen,
This is such a detailed post and the last example of Gillette is actually a good one. I have seen many country specific websites in the recent years who are making and raising millions. Definitely worth trying and absolutely not unethical in my opinion.
Thanks for writing this.
Really interesting read Glen. Took longer than I thought when starting the article, but got more and more interesting!
Nice insight,am changing my business vision because of this article so that more value can be added
Thanks in a million
Great article, but takeaway is execution and not cloning. It is very easy to execute an idea but very very tough to execute at the speed which Rocket guys have done. 100 day e-bay clone, I work full time in India’s one of most successful startups and I know how difficult it is.
So I would say, they might be copying but they are executing better than any one else.
Absolutely. Can’t take any credit away from their speed of execution 🙂
I haven’t finished the article yet because I came across the phrase “getting a piece of the taco pie” and I fell off my chair. Just now getting up and reading again. Nah, I’m still laughing!
Hahaha.
Maturity is not my strong point 😉
It’s much appreciated!
Hey Glen,
what are your top5/10 blogs you read regularly?
What a great post! Thanks again Glen… I love your website. Keep up the good work!
Hi Glen ,
You explained every thing and leave no room for any douts Thanks for one more awsome article.
As always great post Glen.I am doing this for the past 4-5 years and have seen people do the same.Most of the business concepts are started in USA which can be easily replicated in other developing countries.People are still making a fortune by doing this.Most of the time the companies in USA take some time to expand globally which is the main gap where people take time to replicate the business concept with slight changes to suit their countries.Mostly i have seen this trend happening in all industries.These things started happening after the globalization of the internet.People can still make a killing by paying proper attention to certain blogs and magazines and most of the time the biz concepts are proven to make big bucks so it’s worth the work you put in the biz.Mostly “Execution” will be the biggest variable of the success.
Hi Glen
Really love reading your posts here in Singapore
1) was wondering if you can share the tools that you use to manage your projects and your team (if it’s not custom)
2) have you ever thought about hosting a meetup?
Always delivering the goodies Glen 🙂
As i read the name Groupon on the first line, i remembered Com Mirza (who i’m sure you know) was the Co-Founder of GroupIn.pk which is basically Groupon for the Pakistan market…I don’t know if he still has a stake in it but as you can see, there is potential in even the smallest of markets and some of the most successful people are doing this 🙂
Nothing new, and these guys have made a good business out of it – http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2012/04/features/inside-the-clone-factory – cloning everything that works in the USA and Asia.
If you are from outside of the USA, I’m pretty certain you have heard or used one of their clones.
Your comment was nothing new.
Glen, Thank you so much for such valuable input. It was a ton of insights on inspirations.
After I reading this article, I went ahead, registered a domain(.com) and setup a WordPress host at Godaddy for the new venture.
I am based in NZ and want to start up a travel deals site for overseas visitors whom coming over to NZ and get great trip deals from “flights, hotels, car hire and activities”. I did the niche research and realised there is nobody is taking advantage of this and no site that solely focus on NZ travel deals.
I am not sure what is the process to setup a site like this?
I am not the expert on designing site, should I hire website pro to design the site and how would I approach all the vendors of flights, hotels, car hire and activities?
Thanks again
Great article, really insightful and one that will really spark my inspiration. I’m new to the Viperchill after someone else pointed it out to me. You’ve got yourself a new follower.
Glenn, great stuff as always.
I especially liked your thoughts on how to stay on top of trends, which is something I try to do as well. Are there any other websites you scour, or tips you could share about trendspotting? I think that would be very helpful, and maybe even warrants a future article.
On a side note, I created a site late in 2014 using your ViralNova article as a pillar of inspiration and am currently in escrow to close the sale of it for low six figures. 🙂 So thank you!
This is my first article to read for you Glen, yet i have to say it’s a great source of inspiration
Can’t wait to find something to work on it soon… waiting for the next article
M.W
Loved the article Glenn! Keep them coming please 🙂
Regards,
Dieet
Well my taxi app to kick the ass out of Uber, Get and Lyft for the UK is nearly ready – HUG is born and will take its first steps soon into the big wide world – Everyone will be sharing a HUG with a friend! See where its going!
Still the best thing I did quitting that 9-5 job! Thanks Glenn
Lmao…. Taco- i did not expect that
I just a surge of ideas, and just bought 2 domain names, just incase I want to attack them. My question is, do you have multiple web businesses? if so, how do you manage them all and be profitable.
Just to give you an idea of what Im thinking/where I am. I currently run 3 sites (content based- based off ad and affiliate rev.), they are profitable, but Im thinking about adding a service business like OneRent (for example).
Any advice on managing a new business model while running others?
As an Ola (Uber clone) user in India, I would agree that execution is the great determiner here. Uber entered India after Ola started, but has expanded much faster. Interestingly Ola also copies EVERY SINGLE THING Uber rolls out. We watched for example as Uber introduced UberBlack, Ola went with ‘Ola Prime’. Uber did icecream delivery, Ola tried snack delivery. Uber launched UberPool and Ola…well, you get the idea.
Cloning has not come with better execution however and Ola is fraught with problems. It’s struggling with low driver ratings, high levels of customer complaints.
A similar story is happening in India with Flipkart (an Amazon clone) and Amazon India. Again, Flipkart was an early entry, but after Amazon entered it has been bleeding customers and money and recently been downgraded three times in a row by investors. Execution is becoming the hill a lot of these players die on. Not entirely sure why – perhaps because of sub par management who went for copycat ideas in the first place?
Glen always a pleasure reading your super super long articles lol. I always try to see what is working out there and replicate it!
Let me begin by saying that it took me 3 days to read through the whole article. I was reading it in bits whenever I had time.
The part that caught my attention is when you said that this is a mining ground for anyone who is outside the US. You are right about that. There is so much that I can clone by just copying foreign companies. I am so inspired, I will go ahead and do just that by copying what other succesful companies in my industry have done and localize their concepts.
it’s a pleasure reading your articles and the comments. Thanks!
Beautiful article and motivating too. You have compiled a lot of ideas. I have already registered the domain and hosting and lets see how the website performs after 10 years. I wish my website also famous like that of uber or groupon. Thanks for sharing this article.