In 1998, 3 German brothers, Marc, Oliver, and Alexander Samwer saw the rise of a new platform called eBay.
It sparked a thought: if eBay was gaining traction in the U.S, why couldn’t a similar platform work in their home country.
So they approached eBay with an idea: bring the platform to Germany and hire us to run it.
Despite their passionate pitch, the eBay executives turned the brothers down.
Returning to Germany the next year, they launched Alando, an eBay clone for the German market.
In a shocking twist, just a hundred days after launching, eBay acquired Alando for a staggering forty three million dollars.
Sensing they were on to something, the brothers used the money to launch Rocket Internet, a venture studio dedicated to the art of ripping off US companies.
The blueprint was simple: duplicate successful US businesses, launch them in foreign countries and eventually sell them to the original company.
Over the next few years, the Samwers targeted several major platforms including Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Amazon. Each time selling their clone for hundreds of millions.
Today, each brother is worth around 1.2 billion dollars.
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Ikea aren’t worth anything, it’s only execution that matters. They took the fast follower approach and reolictwed a new business model In a region not yet exploited.