Few points here:
- I love the fact that the article is based on facts and author's reflections thus leaving the emotional factor out of it. Because TechCrunch (sorry I do really read and like your articles) just cannot get rid of the feeling that you hate these guys in the guts, for the reader's sake let us look at your last 3 publications as of writing this post:
- Rocket Internet: Is There A Method To Its Madness Or Is It Just Bad For Innovation
- the re-iterration of the Bltzkrieg email In confidential email Samwer describes online furniture strategy as a 'Blitzkrieg' in every possible following article about RI including the last one Rocket Internet’s ‘Blitzkrieg’: JP Morgan Invests In Russian Fashion Site Lamoda; $40-80M Reported
- I also appreciate the mentioning of the fact that businesses that are so easily cloned and surpassed in weeks can actually learn from RI and have lost focus.
- And last but not least important actually adding yet another player is beneficial for the consumer. And a business that does not have its customers in the middle does not seem sustainable in mid or any longer term.
I would love if someone agrees or disagrees with my view and hopefully not Richard's because he won't be available for comment.
An entrepreneur comes up wth an idea, iterates over it, spends his little free time building prototypes, launches and promotes it, spends countless nights tweaking the beta product to improve it, gets traction, goes through the grueling process of an angel round just to sustain and grow the first version.
ReplyDeleteThen, all of the sudden, someone just takes what he's done, adds a load of cash, copies it and muscles the market to adopt it.
You can argue all you want, but that feels naturally wrong to just about any ethical person.
Execution is a problem when you're short on resources and you need to be smart and creative to still make it work. When someone throws 2 or 3 million € at most problems, you have to be downright incompetent to blow it; because when you have that type of funding, everything gets way easier.
That's precisely the problem: a bunch of cash-loaded people simply throw money at a task that is nothing more than copying a successful idea (and/or someones brilliant solution to a though problem) and that is actually disrespectful of all the hard work a real entrepreneur has to go through.
Hey, The way you it actually sounds very real and unethical. But you forget something.
DeleteCan you name the entrepreneurs that Rocket actually compete with? I guess you cannot because they are extremely cash loaded, multibillion companies (not poor entrepreneurs) with traction and thousands of employees across the globe.
Actually many did not enter some markets because they do not offer the scale to reap enough profits for a company of that size. So let us see this from consumer point of view? Aren't they better off with someone like Rocket to offer what others see as unworthy of doing?