In some cases, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. That is unless your extremely popular site has been completely cloned.
Fab founder and CEO Jason Goldberg tweeted about a new-found UK based clone of his money making machine, and wasn’t flattered at all.
This looks somewhat familiar. Imitation in this case is not all that flattering.bit.ly/w8hFX7 Complete rip-off.
— Jason Goldberg (@betashop) January 25, 2012
The site is called Bamarang, and not only does it appear to be a rip-off of Fab’s simplistic design (complete with rotating images upon refresh), it looks that the site is lifting its successful business model as well, touting deals of up to 70% off:
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In case you’re not sure of what Fab, a site that offers exclusive deals from designers, looks like, here’s a look:
Fab made its way to one million users in just five months, could hit two million users by next week, and recently received a valuation of $200M after a round of funding.
This is extremely reminiscent of what happened when Groupon took off, as many knockoffs spawned themselves all over the globe. When people see success like Fab has, unfortunately their first move is to clone it. In some cases, these companies get purchased by the ones they clone, since they focus on a specific part of the world that the original hasn’t.
Goldberg’s tweet didn’t sound like he was in a buying mode, though.
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