“The barrier to entry was capital and execution. Community- or technology-focused companies wouldn’t do because it takes too much time and customer trust to make a lot of money. We tried cloning Airbnb, but it didn’t work because it’s so brand- and community-focused. Even though we had a staff of 400 staff in 15 offices within two months, it didn’t work.
Eventually we realized the best companies to clone were e-commerce businesses.”
Once we picked which idea we wanted to do, the next step was all about growth. It was growth at all costs.
There are three levers we used to successfully clone a business and make it grow faster than the original: expand geography where the service or product is located, create a larger product offering, or lower the pricing to undercut the competitor. Most of the time is was by having more products and undercutting the competitor.
After picking the levers it was time to grow. The first six months is 100% week-over-week growth. Then after $1 million in revenue it’s 20% growth every month. We built billion-dollar companies in 36 months.
We’d say to ourselves, “We’re going to dominate this market then prove that we’re growing revenue 20% month over month. Profit doesn’t matter.” We just needed to stay under a certain monthly burn rate. Then we’d sell the company and let the buyer figure out how to make it profitable.”
http://thehustle.co/rocket-internet-oliver-samwer