Wait A Minute, Doc.

To the surprise of many, I grew up in a few Asian countries. As I came of age, I was particularly drawn to China as I saw the country emerge to become a global superpower. During the 2000s, companies such as Alibaba (China’s Amazon), Weibo (China’s Twitter) and Baidu (China’s Google) had just begun their mission for country wide dominance.

Introduction to the world of tech was revolutionary for China’s masses, but e-commerce, micro-blogging and a search engine — have we not seen these ideas before?

Indeed, Amazon was founded 5 years prior to Alibaba. Twitter was founded 3 years before Weibo. Google, 2 years before Baidu. Evidently, there seems to be some sort of time lag between the birth of similar companies in different countries. A lesser-known example (and a favourite of mine) is Pinduoduo, which was founded 7 years later than its US parallel, Groupon. Today, the former dwarfs the latter’s market value by 177x. A modern-day David and Goliath story.

Is this lagging relationship unique to start-ups between US and China? If not, how developed does a country need to be to facilitate certain ideas? Could you have founded UberEATS at any time, in any country, even before the iPhone was launched? Why hasn’t India fulfilled its prophecy of becoming ‘The Next China’? Let’s take a look…

High political stability seems to be the foundation for any degree of sustainable economic growth. Unsurprisingly, it is also correlated to higher rates of entrepreneurship. This makes sense. If a country is free from disruptive junctures, its citizens can focus on working on the next best thing.

Would you feel comfortable starting your own company if there are protests every second day?

It is also apparent a country’s rate of technological adoption and its advancement are basal for modern technology start-ups to flourish.

How would Reddit work in a country where no one owned a smartphone?

Beyond that, countries that are ready seem to go through somewhat of a renaissance period relative to the idea. Significant events would precipitate a noticeable leap in the general public’s perception of cultural norms and ways of thinking. I remember when I was younger, ‘gay rights’ were not exactly celebrated in China. This mindset was not adhered by the next generation as individualism started to bloom. On the backdrop of this cultural metamorphosis, an outcasted gay policeman founded Blued. Today, it is the largest gay social network app in the world.

Guess what? Joel Simkhai founded Grindr in 2009, 3 years before Geng Le founded his version in China.

No doubt timing is a major factor. For example, you risk becoming a World Wide Waiter (what’s that? Exactly) if you are too early. Too late, you are ‘just another food delivery service’.

Time lag across different ideas and countries will undoubtedly vary. As the world becomes increasingly integrated, information becomes exponentially more fluid. On average, I can imagine these observed time lags will compress between first movers and its replicas. Local versions could outpace the ‘first mover’ by establishing domestic market dominance. A recent top of mind example is Klarna. Before Afterpay (or Clearpay) entered the UK, the European version was already operational and expanding rapidly.

It seems our exploration of the ‘copy-cats’ prophesises an inevitable phasing out of the inspiring garage entrepreneur.

Instead of the “I had a vision to change the world etc.” stories, we may get more of “oh, I took the idea from a dude in Sweden”

Notwithstanding, I’d argue this is not something we have not seen before. Nike (previously Blue Ribbon) was founded in 1964 after Phil Knight took a ‘find myself’ round trip to Japan. Today, it is just happening at a much, much faster pace. Hear me out, but I think the replicas deserve more credit. Adapting an idea still requires a great understanding of the local market, operational excellence and an innate entrepreneurial drive. We hear the success stories but survivorship bias clouds our perception of the countless examples of entrepreneurs who have failed in executing their own version of an idea. Locally, even being a ‘second mover’ can further create immense amount of value. For example, ‘buy now pay later’ companies are not only surviving in Australia, but they are thriving. Zip, perhaps Afterpay’s closest competitor locally, is a Unicorn in itself.

But what if [INSERT BIG TECH COMPANY] does the same thing and becomes a competitor?

Across the world, in the food delivery space, Doordash (the ‘first mover’) has recently surpassed Uber (the ‘second mover’) in market cap. Let me emphasise, Uber in its entirety (inclusive of UberEATS!). Perhaps this is not too different from two dry cleaners competing against each other, across the road. If someone tells you an idea “already exists,” think again, as [INSERT YOUR NAME]’s version may not.

From my bedroom,

Tyson