Attack of the clones

　　克隆來襲

　　ON AUGUST 1st Airbnb, an online marketplace that helps people rent rooms, admitted that ithad mishandled a complaint from someone whose apartment was ransacked by one of itsrenters. Brian Chesky, the firms boss, begged forgiveness and announced that from August15th Airbnb would cover up to $50,000-worth of damage caused by its customers, subject tocertain conditions. Soon afterwards 9flats, a rival based in Berlin, saidit, too, would offer insurance.

　　8月1日，Airbnb，一家在線房屋租賃公司，承認他們錯誤的處理了一起客戶投訴，這位客戶的公寓被其中一名租客洗劫一空。公司的老板Brian Chesky懇求客戶的原諒，并宣布從當月15日起，客戶所遭受的損失，只要符合一定的條件，Airbnb將會為他們買單，承擔高達5萬美元的費用。隨即，一家總部在柏林的競爭對手9flats也宣布他們將為客戶提供保險。

　　An Airbnb executive gripe s that such behaviour is typical of 9flats, which he says copiesmuch of what Airbnb does. Other American web superstars,such as Groupon, a discount firm, and Kickstarter, which crowdsources funding for arts andtechnology projects, have also been attacked by clones . As the cost of computing power plummets and the prices of hot start-ups soarAirbnb was recently valued at an eye-watering $1.3billionthe clone wars will get bloody.

　　Airbnb一位高層抱怨稱這是9flats的一貫手法，對方已經(jīng)抄襲了Airbnb 的很多做法。其它的美國互聯(lián)網(wǎng)明星企業(yè)，像Groupon和Kickstarter，也同樣受到了克隆企業(yè)的困擾。由于計算機計算成本銳減和熱門創(chuàng)業(yè)企業(yè)受到的熱捧Airbnb最近就被估計市值高達13億美元，這場反克隆的戰(zhàn)爭將會愈加血腥。

　　One battleground will be China. There, opaque ruleshave kept many American firms at bay , leaving thefield open for Chinese ones to develop similarservices. Diandian, for example, resembles Tumblr,an American blogging platform. Zhihu, a question-and-answer service, looks a bit like Quora, anAmerican firm.

　　其中一個戰(zhàn)場就是中國。在那，一些不透明的規(guī)則使許多美國企業(yè)發(fā)展受阻，為中國的本土企業(yè)發(fā)展相似服務提供了很大的空間。例如，點點就是模仿的美國輕博客社區(qū)Tumblr。知乎，這家社會化問答網(wǎng)站就和美國的Quora如初一輒。

　　Another battleground will be Germany, where three brothers, Alexander, Oliver and MarcSamwer, have become the copycat kings of Europe. The brothers have a knack for spottinggood business models in Silicon Valley, and then quickly starting something similar in Europe.They later sell these clones, sometimes to the firms on which they were modelled.

　　另一個戰(zhàn)場會是德國，那有三兄弟Alexander，Oliver和Marc Samwer，他們是歐洲著名的抄襲之王。他們的本事就是能很快的發(fā)現(xiàn)來自硅谷的好的商業(yè)模式，然后迅速在歐洲發(fā)展相似的業(yè)務。再賣掉這些克隆企業(yè)，有時就賣給被他們抄襲的企業(yè)。

　　The Samwers scored their first success in 1999 with Alando, an online auction house which theysold to eBay. They have notched up several other big deals since then . In 2007,beside their investment vehicle, European Founders Fund, they set up Rocket Internet, anincubator that uses its own pool of expertsnow around 90 peopleto help launch severalstart-ups a year. Kinnevik, a Swedish investor, has a stake and also invests in its portfolio .

　　Samwer兄弟在1999年覓得了第一桶金，他們在成功成立了一家相似的網(wǎng)上拍賣行Alando后，又回賣給了eBay。那之后，他們還完成了若干項別的大交易。2007年，除了他們的投資工具甌洲創(chuàng)始人基金，他們還成立了一家名為Rocket Internet的公司，這是一家創(chuàng)業(yè)孵化器，主要依靠自己的專家現(xiàn)在大概共有員工90名，每年幫助若干企業(yè)創(chuàng)業(yè)。來自瑞典的投資人Kinnevik 就有在該公司的股權(quán)，并參與了其他的投資組合。

　　Airbnb is now firmly in the Samwers sights. In June,the American firm bought Accoleo, a start-up inHamburg, as a way into the European market. Itfaces stiff competition not just from 9flats but alsofrom Wimdu, a clone backed by the Samwer brothersand staffed with experienced hands. ArneBleckwenn, the boss of Wimdu, is on his third start-up for the Samwers. Gamegoods, his first, was arare flop. The second, GratisPay, a virtual-currencyplatform for internet games, was sold last year toSponsorPay, a German rival.

　　Airbnb現(xiàn)在就被Samwer兄弟瞄上了。在6月，這家美國企業(yè)買下了在德國漢堡的一家創(chuàng)業(yè)企業(yè)Accoleo，借此進入歐洲市場。它所面臨的嚴峻競爭不單來自 9flats，也來自Samwer兄弟投資的另一家擁有經(jīng)驗豐富的員工的克隆企業(yè)Wimdu。對Wimdu的老板Ame Bleckwenn來說，這已經(jīng)是他的第三次創(chuàng)業(yè)了。他創(chuàng)業(yè)的第一家企業(yè)Gamegoods是一次十足的失敗。第二家是專為網(wǎng)絡游戲提供虛擬貨幣的平臺網(wǎng)站GratisPay，在去年賣給了德國的競爭對手SponsorPay。

　　Wimdu is no shoestring operation: in June it raised $90m from its core investors. In July theSamwers raised more money for Zalando, an online shoe-shop that resembles AmazonsZappos. Both Wimdu and Zalando may ultimately be snapped up by other firms, though theSamwers could choose to hang on to them or to take some equity in the buyera strategyRocket Internet adopted when it sold CityDeal, an online-discount firm, to Groupon last year.Rocket Internet has been helping to develop Groupons international business, along with twoof the Samwer brothers. It stands to make more money from Groupons planned stockmarketlisting .

　　Wimdu可不是小本經(jīng)營，僅在6月它就從核心投資者那兒獲得了9千萬的投資。在7月Samwer兄弟又為Zalando帶來了更多的投資，這是一家在網(wǎng)上賣鞋的網(wǎng)站，和 Amazon的Zappos類似。不管Wimdu還是Zalando，最終都可能會被別的公司收購，雖然Samwer兄弟可以選擇是自己經(jīng)營還是從購買者那保持一定的股份在去年將CityDeal賣給Groupon時，Rocket Internet就采取了后一種策略。Rocket Internet和Samwer兄弟中的其中兩位決定幫助提升Groupon的國際業(yè)務，這樣他們就可以從Groupon的上市計劃中獲利更多。

　　Florian Heinemann, the boss of Rocket Internet, is unrepentant about cloning. Internet ideasare rarely patented and rightly so, he says: patents create a temporary monopoly whichtends to stifle competition. Mr Bleckwenn at Wimdu also defends copying good ideas: BMWdidnt invent the car, he observes. German mechanical engineers are brilliant at improvingexisting inventions. From their perspective, the Samwer brothers are simply applying thatsame genius to the internet.

　　Florian Heinemann，Rocket Internet則對克隆企業(yè)的做法不以為意。互聯(lián)網(wǎng)的創(chuàng)意大都沒有申請專利，并且他認為專利會造成一時的壟斷，扼殺競爭。Wimdu的 Bleckwenn也認為模仿好點子的做法合理。寶馬公司也不是汽車的發(fā)明者，他說道。德國的機械工程師們很擅長對已有的發(fā)明進行改進。對 Samwer兄弟而言，他們也僅是將自己的這一天賦用于了互聯(lián)網(wǎng)而已。

　　Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but some of the imitatees cant take acompliment . They hate having to buy back their own ideas at a hefty premium. And theygripe about the clone troopers aggressive tactics. Airbnb claims that clones have sent peopleto rent its properties so they can give owners a sales pitch . Such tricks make Silicon Valleytypes choke on their freshly squeezed mango juice. But they are perfectly legal.

　　模仿這一說法也許是最真誠的恭維方式，但對一些被模仿者卻不愿領情。他們不想要再以額外大量的費用買回原本就屬于他們的創(chuàng)意。并且他們抱怨這些后來者咄咄逼人的策略。Airbnb就埋怨說那些克隆網(wǎng)站會派人去租他們的公寓，這樣他們就能向房屋所有者推銷他們的服務了。盡管這些伎倆會令硅谷的榜樣們被他們的鮮榨芒果汁給嗆著。但他們這樣全是完全合法的。

　　Fred Destin, a venture capitalist at Atlas Venturewho has worked in both Europe and America, sees adouble standard. When something works inAmerica, he says, eight companies immediately goafter the same opportunity and venture capitalistsfund them. But nobody calls them clones. The factthat Groupon has been willing to work with theSamwers on building its business is another signthat some of the outrage is overdone.

　　來自Atlas Venture的Fred Destin，作為一位在歐洲和美國都工作過的風險投資家，他發(fā)現(xiàn)了其中的雙重標準。當一些企業(yè)在美國興起時，他說道8家相同的企業(yè)會立馬獲得相同的機會，得到風投們的支持。但是卻沒有人說他們是抄襲。事實上， Groupon愿意同Samwer兄弟合作發(fā)展業(yè)務的意愿就給了我們一個信號，來自克隆企業(yè)的沖擊太過分了。

　　Still, start-ups do need to think about the threat. Suing clones is hard, says David Goldstone,an intellectual-property specialist at Goodwin Procter, an American law firm. Registeringpatents in many countries is both costly and time-consuming, and they may prove hard toenforce. A better bet is to out-innovate the opposition. Firms that can harness powerfulnetwork effects, in which users encourage friends and family members to join them on aparticular service, may be best placed to fight off the clones. Others will just have to draw theirlight sabres and hope that the Force is with them.

　　然而，創(chuàng)業(yè)企業(yè)們還是得考慮一下這些威脅。要想控告這些克隆企業(yè)很難，來自美國律師事務所的知識產(chǎn)權(quán)專家David Goldstone認為。在很多國家，注冊專利費錢又費時，很難進行。一種更好的博弈就是在創(chuàng)新上超越對手。那些能夠打敗克隆者的，往往是能有效利用強大的網(wǎng)絡影響，讓用戶們鼓勵親朋好友來使用它的某種特定服務的企業(yè)。而其它的企業(yè)則只能手執(zhí)佩劍，希望自己也能擁有這樣的力量。

　　Attack of the clones

　　克隆來襲

　　ON AUGUST 1st Airbnb, an online marketplace that helps people rent rooms, admitted that ithad mishandled a complaint from someone whose apartment was ransacked by one of itsrenters. Brian Chesky, the firms boss, begged forgiveness and announced that from August15th Airbnb would cover up to $50,000-worth of damage caused by its customers, subject tocertain conditions. Soon afterwards 9flats, a rival based in Berlin, saidit, too, would offer insurance.

　　8月1日，Airbnb，一家在線房屋租賃公司，承認他們錯誤的處理了一起客戶投訴，這位客戶的公寓被其中一名租客洗劫一空。公司的老板Brian Chesky懇求客戶的原諒，并宣布從當月15日起，客戶所遭受的損失，只要符合一定的條件，Airbnb將會為他們買單，承擔高達5萬美元的費用。隨即，一家總部在柏林的競爭對手9flats也宣布他們將為客戶提供保險。

　　An Airbnb executive gripe s that such behaviour is typical of 9flats, which he says copiesmuch of what Airbnb does. Other American web superstars,such as Groupon, a discount firm, and Kickstarter, which crowdsources funding for arts andtechnology projects, have also been attacked by clones . As the cost of computing power plummets and the prices of hot start-ups soarAirbnb was recently valued at an eye-watering $1.3billionthe clone wars will get bloody.

　　Airbnb一位高層抱怨稱這是9flats的一貫手法，對方已經(jīng)抄襲了Airbnb 的很多做法。其它的美國互聯(lián)網(wǎng)明星企業(yè)，像Groupon和Kickstarter，也同樣受到了克隆企業(yè)的困擾。由于計算機計算成本銳減和熱門創(chuàng)業(yè)企業(yè)受到的熱捧Airbnb最近就被估計市值高達13億美元，這場反克隆的戰(zhàn)爭將會愈加血腥。

　　One battleground will be China. There, opaque ruleshave kept many American firms at bay , leaving thefield open for Chinese ones to develop similarservices. Diandian, for example, resembles Tumblr,an American blogging platform. Zhihu, a question-and-answer service, looks a bit like Quora, anAmerican firm.

　　其中一個戰(zhàn)場就是中國。在那，一些不透明的規(guī)則使許多美國企業(yè)發(fā)展受阻，為中國的本土企業(yè)發(fā)展相似服務提供了很大的空間。例如，點點就是模仿的美國輕博客社區(qū)Tumblr。知乎，這家社會化問答網(wǎng)站就和美國的Quora如初一輒。

　　Another battleground will be Germany, where three brothers, Alexander, Oliver and MarcSamwer, have become the copycat kings of Europe. The brothers have a knack for spottinggood business models in Silicon Valley, and then quickly starting something similar in Europe.They later sell these clones, sometimes to the firms on which they were modelled.

　　另一個戰(zhàn)場會是德國，那有三兄弟Alexander，Oliver和Marc Samwer，他們是歐洲著名的抄襲之王。他們的本事就是能很快的發(fā)現(xiàn)來自硅谷的好的商業(yè)模式，然后迅速在歐洲發(fā)展相似的業(yè)務。再賣掉這些克隆企業(yè)，有時就賣給被他們抄襲的企業(yè)。

　　The Samwers scored their first success in 1999 with Alando, an online auction house which theysold to eBay. They have notched up several other big deals since then . In 2007,beside their investment vehicle, European Founders Fund, they set up Rocket Internet, anincubator that uses its own pool of expertsnow around 90 peopleto help launch severalstart-ups a year. Kinnevik, a Swedish investor, has a stake and also invests in its portfolio .

　　Samwer兄弟在1999年覓得了第一桶金，他們在成功成立了一家相似的網(wǎng)上拍賣行Alando后，又回賣給了eBay。那之后，他們還完成了若干項別的大交易。2007年，除了他們的投資工具甌洲創(chuàng)始人基金，他們還成立了一家名為Rocket Internet的公司，這是一家創(chuàng)業(yè)孵化器，主要依靠自己的專家現(xiàn)在大概共有員工90名，每年幫助若干企業(yè)創(chuàng)業(yè)。來自瑞典的投資人Kinnevik 就有在該公司的股權(quán)，并參與了其他的投資組合。

　　Airbnb is now firmly in the Samwers sights. In June,the American firm bought Accoleo, a start-up inHamburg, as a way into the European market. Itfaces stiff competition not just from 9flats but alsofrom Wimdu, a clone backed by the Samwer brothersand staffed with experienced hands. ArneBleckwenn, the boss of Wimdu, is on his third start-up for the Samwers. Gamegoods, his first, was arare flop. The second, GratisPay, a virtual-currencyplatform for internet games, was sold last year toSponsorPay, a German rival.

　　Airbnb現(xiàn)在就被Samwer兄弟瞄上了。在6月，這家美國企業(yè)買下了在德國漢堡的一家創(chuàng)業(yè)企業(yè)Accoleo，借此進入歐洲市場。它所面臨的嚴峻競爭不單來自 9flats，也來自Samwer兄弟投資的另一家擁有經(jīng)驗豐富的員工的克隆企業(yè)Wimdu。對Wimdu的老板Ame Bleckwenn來說，這已經(jīng)是他的第三次創(chuàng)業(yè)了。他創(chuàng)業(yè)的第一家企業(yè)Gamegoods是一次十足的失敗。第二家是專為網(wǎng)絡游戲提供虛擬貨幣的平臺網(wǎng)站GratisPay，在去年賣給了德國的競爭對手SponsorPay。

　　Wimdu is no shoestring operation: in June it raised $90m from its core investors. In July theSamwers raised more money for Zalando, an online shoe-shop that resembles AmazonsZappos. Both Wimdu and Zalando may ultimately be snapped up by other firms, though theSamwers could choose to hang on to them or to take some equity in the buyera strategyRocket Internet adopted when it sold CityDeal, an online-discount firm, to Groupon last year.Rocket Internet has been helping to develop Groupons international business, along with twoof the Samwer brothers. It stands to make more money from Groupons planned stockmarketlisting .

　　Wimdu可不是小本經(jīng)營，僅在6月它就從核心投資者那兒獲得了9千萬的投資。在7月Samwer兄弟又為Zalando帶來了更多的投資，這是一家在網(wǎng)上賣鞋的網(wǎng)站，和 Amazon的Zappos類似。不管Wimdu還是Zalando，最終都可能會被別的公司收購，雖然Samwer兄弟可以選擇是自己經(jīng)營還是從購買者那保持一定的股份在去年將CityDeal賣給Groupon時，Rocket Internet就采取了后一種策略。Rocket Internet和Samwer兄弟中的其中兩位決定幫助提升Groupon的國際業(yè)務，這樣他們就可以從Groupon的上市計劃中獲利更多。

　　Florian Heinemann, the boss of Rocket Internet, is unrepentant about cloning. Internet ideasare rarely patented and rightly so, he says: patents create a temporary monopoly whichtends to stifle competition. Mr Bleckwenn at Wimdu also defends copying good ideas: BMWdidnt invent the car, he observes. German mechanical engineers are brilliant at improvingexisting inventions. From their perspective, the Samwer brothers are simply applying thatsame genius to the internet.

　　Florian Heinemann，Rocket Internet則對克隆企業(yè)的做法不以為意。互聯(lián)網(wǎng)的創(chuàng)意大都沒有申請專利，并且他認為專利會造成一時的壟斷，扼殺競爭。Wimdu的 Bleckwenn也認為模仿好點子的做法合理。寶馬公司也不是汽車的發(fā)明者，他說道。德國的機械工程師們很擅長對已有的發(fā)明進行改進。對 Samwer兄弟而言，他們也僅是將自己的這一天賦用于了互聯(lián)網(wǎng)而已。

　　Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but some of the imitatees cant take acompliment . They hate having to buy back their own ideas at a hefty premium. And theygripe about the clone troopers aggressive tactics. Airbnb claims that clones have sent peopleto rent its properties so they can give owners a sales pitch . Such tricks make Silicon Valleytypes choke on their freshly squeezed mango juice. But they are perfectly legal.

　　模仿這一說法也許是最真誠的恭維方式，但對一些被模仿者卻不愿領情。他們不想要再以額外大量的費用買回原本就屬于他們的創(chuàng)意。并且他們抱怨這些后來者咄咄逼人的策略。Airbnb就埋怨說那些克隆網(wǎng)站會派人去租他們的公寓，這樣他們就能向房屋所有者推銷他們的服務了。盡管這些伎倆會令硅谷的榜樣們被他們的鮮榨芒果汁給嗆著。但他們這樣全是完全合法的。

　　Fred Destin, a venture capitalist at Atlas Venturewho has worked in both Europe and America, sees adouble standard. When something works inAmerica, he says, eight companies immediately goafter the same opportunity and venture capitalistsfund them. But nobody calls them clones. The factthat Groupon has been willing to work with theSamwers on building its business is another signthat some of the outrage is overdone.

　　來自Atlas Venture的Fred Destin，作為一位在歐洲和美國都工作過的風險投資家，他發(fā)現(xiàn)了其中的雙重標準。當一些企業(yè)在美國興起時，他說道8家相同的企業(yè)會立馬獲得相同的機會，得到風投們的支持。但是卻沒有人說他們是抄襲。事實上， Groupon愿意同Samwer兄弟合作發(fā)展業(yè)務的意愿就給了我們一個信號，來自克隆企業(yè)的沖擊太過分了。

　　Still, start-ups do need to think about the threat. Suing clones is hard, says David Goldstone,an intellectual-property specialist at Goodwin Procter, an American law firm. Registeringpatents in many countries is both costly and time-consuming, and they may prove hard toenforce. A better bet is to out-innovate the opposition. Firms that can harness powerfulnetwork effects, in which users encourage friends and family members to join them on aparticular service, may be best placed to fight off the clones. Others will just have to draw theirlight sabres and hope that the Force is with them.

　　然而，創(chuàng)業(yè)企業(yè)們還是得考慮一下這些威脅。要想控告這些克隆企業(yè)很難，來自美國律師事務所的知識產(chǎn)權(quán)專家David Goldstone認為。在很多國家，注冊專利費錢又費時，很難進行。一種更好的博弈就是在創(chuàng)新上超越對手。那些能夠打敗克隆者的，往往是能有效利用強大的網(wǎng)絡影響，讓用戶們鼓勵親朋好友來使用它的某種特定服務的企業(yè)。而其它的企業(yè)則只能手執(zhí)佩劍，希望自己也能擁有這樣的力量。