Innovate or Imitate? Europe: Continent of Copycats?

20 Sep 2011 // General, Speaker


After the panelists Patrick Meisberger (T-Venture), Markus Fuhrmann (Team Europe), Lars Hinrichs (HackFwd), and Isaac Wolkerstorfer (6 Wunderkinder) had introduced themselves, host Mike Butcher (TechCrunch Europe) got the discussion going on the pros and cons of “cloning” successful business models, and kept it lively by playing the devil’s advocate.

Not unexpectedly, opinions were divided, even sharply drawn at times, between what could be called the “apologists” and the “idealists.” The former argued that Europeans would rarely clone American models 1:1 but adapt them to their own markets; that business models that look similar on the surface would often have a different structure; and that there existed a substantial gray zone between true copycats and legitimate competitors. The “idealists,” in contrast, regarded cloning simply as “stealing” and argued that cloning business models would neither further innovation nor provide a sense of personal achievement.

From there, the aspect of risk aversion vs. innovation took a major role in the discussion. Does cloning remove money from the ecosystem that could be put to better use? There was a strong sense that European investors are so risk-averse that they’d rather continue funding proven business models, and that money earned by cloning wasn’t very likely to get invested in really innovative startups.

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