Have you heard of Rocket Internet - (Samwer brothers) they have become experts in how to copy recently funded companies although hated by startup communities everywhere. Worth googling them and you will likely find lots of information. They are strong at execution putting alot of money and people on a project from day 1.
If you zoom in on a couple of cases such fab.com or airbnb.com, it is intesting to observe what happened. In Fab.com's case, Rocket internet were getting geared up to copy Fab as Fab was growing fast. Jason Goldberg wrote a letter to all the designers on fab.com and published a post on his own blog saying that it was pointless to copy them. Fab.com deals with designers, and designers hate when people copy them so it was very likely designers wouldn't want to have anything to do with a copy and the rocket clone failed. Airbnb bought smaller competitors, not the rocket clone managing to get around the clone that way.
Then there is the question, "are clones useful?" In some cases, very much so. If a startup wants to expand fast, one avenue it can take is to grow fast in a large city and then acquire the smaller clone startups elsewhere which have already tested how the idea needs to adapt to that context. This would be faster than organic growth.
Lastly, you realise everything is a remix. http://www.everythingisaremix.info/everything-is-a-remix-the... Almost every idea is a copy of the last. I used to work for an extremely famous designer, people always said "he was brilliant at hiding his sources."
If you zoom in on a couple of cases such fab.com or airbnb.com, it is intesting to observe what happened. In Fab.com's case, Rocket internet were getting geared up to copy Fab as Fab was growing fast. Jason Goldberg wrote a letter to all the designers on fab.com and published a post on his own blog saying that it was pointless to copy them. Fab.com deals with designers, and designers hate when people copy them so it was very likely designers wouldn't want to have anything to do with a copy and the rocket clone failed. Airbnb bought smaller competitors, not the rocket clone managing to get around the clone that way.
Then there is the question, "are clones useful?" In some cases, very much so. If a startup wants to expand fast, one avenue it can take is to grow fast in a large city and then acquire the smaller clone startups elsewhere which have already tested how the idea needs to adapt to that context. This would be faster than organic growth.
Lastly, you realise everything is a remix. http://www.everythingisaremix.info/everything-is-a-remix-the... Almost every idea is a copy of the last. I used to work for an extremely famous designer, people always said "he was brilliant at hiding his sources."