[pshin45]

I'm not saying Gowalla originally copied Foursquare, but this blog post got me wondering -

What are some notable examples of a "copycat" startup actually overtaking the original "innovator" startup? Because I'm having trouble thinking of any off the top of my head. (And I'm not talking about cases like Facebook overtaking MySpace or Google overtaking Yahoo where a fundamentally different company overtook a long-dominant incumbent)

Foursquare beat out Gowalla, Google+ never had a chance against Facebook, Groupon beat out Living Social, Pinterest beat out all its copycats, Square has managed to stay ahead of the competition, same with Dropbox, Evernote, Y Combinator, Airbnb, LinkedIn, etc. I could go on but you get my point.

There seems to be a lesson in here somewhere...

[vellum]

Friendster and Myspace. Friendster had the lead, but wasn't that long-dominant.

Edit: Also, just found this: http://www.quora.com/What-are-examples-of-markets-where-the-...

[pshin45]

Great find. Silly me, should've checked Quora first.

Indeed, the first examples that came to mind were the iPod, as well as Android which has arguably "overtaken" iOS at this point.

To be fair though, for my original question I wanted to try limiting the scope to only startups, and more specifically startups that have almost the same product.

Perhaps that's nitpicking too much?

[ed209]

If you look from an international perspective, there are companies started in Europe that did much better in the european markets than the "original" product. The end result is pretty much that the "original" had to buy out the clone.

For example Groupon buying MyCityDeal

The Samwer brothers are experts at this http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2012/04/features/ins...

[amirmc]

> "...did much better in the european markets"

Yes, but this is partly due to the (arguably) slow expansion of hot US startups into overseas markets. The Samwer brothers basically took an approach of copying successful US startups, so in some sense they can bootstrap some of the learning from the predecessor, while never having to directly compete (until the original decides to expand).

[amirmc]

The ones that died early while being overtaken probably didn't leave much in the way of remains.

I doubt that Gowalla and Foursquare were the only 'check-in' apps at the time but we don't hear about the ones they surpassed. In other words, I'm suggesting that what you're describing happens all the time.

[dagw]

Square has managed to stay ahead of the competition In the US.

Lots of copycat companies are competing to do what Square does outside the US. It will be interesting to see if Square manages to compete in those markets if and when they feel ready, or if they'll be forced to chose between buying out the local incumbent or leaving the market.

[hamrickdavid]

Spreadsheets and word processors are good examples. Visicalc was overtaken by Lotus 1-2-3 which was overtaken by Excel. WordPerfect was overtaken by Microsoft Word.

[ripter]

Just about everything Zynga makes is a copy that overtakes the original.

[samstave]

Except their share price!

[pshin45]

+100