Why Chinese startups are copycats

Copycat. It’s a word that has almost become synonymous with China’s tech scene over the past decade. And while the days of China’s most blatant copying — remember when Renren was called Xiaonei and it looked exactly like Facebook? — are long gone, the so-called “Copy to China” model is still pretty prevalent in the country’s startup scene. And of course, plenty of Chinese internet companies are also engaged in copying each other!

So what gives? Why do so many Chinese internet companies copy? It’s all about risk aversion.

It’s not who does it first, but who does it best

This is true in almost every tech market but it might be even more true in China: winning the race to execute some new idea first often gets you nothing. In China’s highly-crowded tech startup scene, being first is rarely a significant competitive advantage. If another company working on the same idea launches a few months later with better execution, they’re often going to win out. Read more…

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