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Copycat
Posted by Bud Caddell on August 11, 2008

Being a copycat is an entirely acceptable business model. Whole publishing houses work off of this formula: wait for a hit then rush to market with a slew of clones.

The big advantage of the copycat model is the ability to bet on a sure thing. Well, mostly, its a sure thing. If you’re too late, you’ll miss the crest of the wave. Of course, if you spend too much money obsessing over the details you’ll likely never break even – most of the money follows the ‘hit’ product.

So being a copycat comes down to rushing out a product that’s mediocre but at least retains enough qualities of the hit to stay in the conversation. The copycat doesn’t make a lot of fans, it just hopes to siphon off enough people through to the purchase.

Its a lot cheaper to produce a copycat product, there’s none of that expensive R&D to deal with. Just wait, watch, and rip it off. And its only getting easier to make those copycats… which means if you’re not in the copycat business, you have to do more with your next hit product. Good luck if you’re on your own.

You’ll need your customers with you more than ever. Consider the Zune. The Zune was a damn good copycat by copycat standards. It worked. It replicated 99% of the features and functionality of the hit. But it ultimately didn’t siphon off those Apple customers, so it was the flop. Wouldn’t it be nice to have those Apple customers, by the way?

Technology products are still pretty easy to differentiate, books not so much. How about your products? How much of your time is spent fighting off the copycats?

Tagged with: copycat bud caddell

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