How 3 German Brothers Shamelessly Clone Startups

Three German brothers built a billion dollar "clone factory" that took America's hottest startup ideas, exported them to the world, and changed global tech forever. From eBay to Amazon, they turned copying into a playbook.

Video Chapters
(00:00) Making $43M in 90 days
(01:56) Rocket’s Origin Story
(03:15) The Rocket Playbook
(05:33) Cloning Startups at Scale
(08:01) Rocket’s Wake Up Call
(09:36) Inside Rocket’s Decline
(12:22) Innovation or Imitation?

Key References:

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Disclaimer: Hiten Shah's "The Hiten Show" episodes are provided for general information purposes only and do not constitute business, financial, or other professional advice. This video is purely my opinion and should not be regarded as a primary source. Audience members should not act upon the content or information found here without first seeking appropriate advice from an accountant, financial planner, lawyer, or other professional.

[vyrvygora]

I accidentally ended up in a Rocket Internet owned company in Berlin - the one in the home cleaning business (for those who know). This was my worst experience in tech, and still is until today. The office was cramped, and we had to buy our own coffee for the coffee machine. The CTO was completely clueless and only projected power instead of doing anything useful. He was the only person in my 15+ years long career who literally told me I am spending too long on the toilet when I just went to take a dump... Even writing this feels ridiculous.
At the time (~8 years ago), I was still kind of fresh in the scene and didn't quite understand why things are the way they are. Now, retrospectively, it makes sense - considering it was just one of the companies on the conveyor. I was pretty unhappy there just within a few months after joining, the CTO didn't like me, and fired me during the last day of the probation period. It was the best day for my career. Cannot imagine for how long I would have to put up with it before burning out. Kind of feels like escaping a serial killer by accident, LOL.

[jmg]

Heed my words. The video is at 821 views, I watched through completely engaged, this video will get at minimum 100K+ views. Can’t wait to see more from this creator!

[hydra]

The worst part is, three of them means you have to be ready for a three phase boss fight. And there's probably a fourth final phase where the last one uses the corpses of the others to power himself up

[ZaVeg-ps]

How is this not blowing up yet? 3 mins in and im already engaged like crazy. Keep doing what you're doing man.

[batosato]

I used to work for Rocket Internet. I had the worst time working for this company. Shameless is an understatement.

[HB-piew]

Woah this is an amazing video!! From the storytelling to edits to clarity. Thank you for efforts

[Goldsnip]

You forgot to say that they actually worked in Ebay and asked management to open in Europe, where Ebay refused. So they décided just to copy them.

[LordWallyTorres]

People might hate them but they're really good business men.. they know how to execute and adapt brands base on markets and their marketing is impeccable.. yes their business practice is questionable but they have a proven playbook that they capitalize on a lot when it was working and tuned down when it's not now

[VFPnkQT]

According to Wikipedia Hellofresh was founded in 2011, Blue Apron was founded in 2012.

[marting.]

What everyone seems to be overlooking is the fact, that the financial landscape has changed from a near-zero interest environment to a stark increase in the cost of capital.

While most years of their successful period capital was cheap and they could just drown failing businesses with more money, which increased their chance of eventually selling that startup, regardless of longterm profitability, this all changed when interest rates shot up in 2022.

Chances are, that this destroyed their whole copy and paste business model, because its not sustainable, if you need to create startups which are actually successful and profitable.

The market is never wrong. And with higher cost of capital its even harder to disguise this fact.

[MrLoLFaQ]

I'm German and I've never heard of these guys, thank you for teaching me. I know Jamba though. It was the biggest shit we had here in Germany ripping off people with thei subscribtions and nonsense apps.

[lethuzamaZAR]

Unbelievable! It would be interesting if there was a movie about this story

[mattecscc]

One small correction: they didn't bring food delivery to São Paulo. We had our own local startup (iFood) dominating the food delivery space, luckily (when they launched HelloFood in 2013, iFood was already present. They ended up indirectly bought by iFood in 2016 though)

[malcolmfraser]

I did some freelance copywriting job for a Rocket company here in Berlin, an Invisalign clone. They sold / went under before I could invoice them 🤣

[cyane]

wow this was an amazing documentary, beautifully edited and well spoken! you deserve way more recognition !

[Rehmoss]

Excited to discover this new channel. It's gonna be big

[maxloewe]

Their first business model with Jamba was already disgusting. They got a lot of hate for that in Germany.

[CJmyway]

Actually unbelievable that you only have 2.2k subs, this is great quality. Hope the channel blows up

[jmg]

Highly engaging and extremely informative. Would watch another with this style!

[Gemarica]

Smart, steal like an artist. Most startups did more or less the same, but were not serial copiers.