Monkey Says, Monkey Do: The Era of Copycat Businesses

Have we invented too many things to have any true innovation today?

At its worst, the term copycat elicits thoughts of bottom-feeders who lack imagination, drive, work ethic and resourcefulness, stealing what is clearly not theirs. The term is anything but pleasant. At its most pejorative, it describes a uniquely disposable creature of contempt. But what's the origin of the word?

Shakespeare famously used cat in a negative sense in “All's Well That Ends Well." Count Bertram informs his right-hand man that Captain Dumain is increasingly sleazy: “A pox upon him for me, he's more and more a cat." The feline metaphor run amok, is perhaps at best, a misnomer; cats are not imitative creatures. Perhaps monkey says-monkey do and copy parrot are more apt descriptions. However, as former U.S. President Calvin Coolidge once said: “The business of America is business." Copycat businesses often improve the original concepts of their targeted business models-at best, or just mushroom into creativity-lacking clones, at worst.

One cannot help but to wonder if true innovation, in business, is still possible. Is there any creativity left in business creation? What follows are five different types of business models that have been copycatted over and over and over again.

Way back in 1994, "PizzaNet" – Pizza Hut's digital ordering hub, launched, and accepted the first-ever online order, a large pepperoni, mushroom and extra cheese pizza. Papa John's didn't get in on the act until 2001, but in 2008, Papa John's International announced that its online sales were growing on average more than 50 percent each year and neared $400 million in 2007 alone.

The years 1996 thru 2001 birthed the rise of the internet, the Dotcom boom and the subsequent crash. Dotcom startups like Webvan, HomeGrocer and Kozmo started online grocery delivery, but closed in 2001 after the dotcom crash. SeamlessWeb, founded in December 1999, another web-based system for ordering food from restaurants and caterers, was made available to individual users (in 2005), and they currently partner with over 12,000 restaurants, serve over 4,000 companies, and have over 2,000,000 members in the United States and the UK. Then on August 9, 2013, Seamless and GrubHub completed their merger and now operate under the name GrubHub, Inc. Then there's Yelp, Eat24 and the list goes on and on.

Hailing a taxi seems to have become so yesteryear, and the myriad number of ride-sharing companies offer ample evidence to support that. Uber and Lyft are household names in many cities throughout the United States. But lesser-known Didi Chuxing (Chinese company) completed more than 1.4 billion rides just in 2015. It is the most dominant ride-sharing company in the world. Consider this, it took Uber six years (since its founding in 2009) to reach 1 billion rides. Didi Chuxing, just this summer, purchased Uber (China).

Didi, Lyft and Uber are not the only car-sharing options. Here are several more: Sidecar, Carma, Relay Rides (a peer-to-peer car-sharing marketplace where car owners rent out their own vehicles and set their own prices), Car2Go (a fleet of eco-friendly Smart cars that are accessed with a card), JustShareIt (rent vehicles in your neighborhood when you're going to work or wherever you're traveling-hourly rental service), and Getaround, (one of the more popular peer-to-peer car sharing and rental services with insurance included in the cost). There are others, but you get the idea.

Unless you've spent the past 15 years stranded on an island-alone, you've heard of Birchbox. Samples of high end beauty products-for men and women-are sent monthly, which vary from body care to haircare to perfumes. Just like nearly every other subscription box in existence, Bircbox requires that you sign up for a subscription-hence the name subscription boxes. You create a profile, so that only the products that meet your wants and desires are shipped to you.

Unless you've spent the past 15 years stranded on an island-alone, you've heard of Birchbox. Samples of high end beauty products-for men and women-are sent monthly, which vary from body care to haircare to perfumes. Just like nearly every other subscription box in existence, Bircbox requires that you sign up for a subscription-hence the name subscription boxes. You create a profile, so that only the products that meet your wants and desires are shipped to you.

If wine is your passion, there's winc, a personalized wine subscription service. Create your palate profile by answering six questions to help determine a sense of your likes and dislikes, view recommendations based on your input and enjoy your personally selected Malbec or Chardonnay. Still another is Taste Trunk, ideal for foodies, subscribers will receive gourmet food each month. Just choose from four categories-gourmet, sweet, health and BBQ-and you can change themes each month.

Now more than ever, the proliferation of copycat businesses has eviscerated the mere thought of basic creativity, not to mention decreased physical, spiritual and mental fitness. The simple act of walking in to a wine-tasting event or local merchant and engaging in conversation is fast becoming an act of rebellion.

HubSpot, Marketo, Eloqua (Oracle), Pardot (owned by SalesForce), Act-On are but a few marketing automation companies fighting for your business. HubSpot, founded in June 2006, by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah, is a developer and marketer of software products for inbound marketing and sales. They have been described as the one-stop-marketing-shop.

HubSpot is affordable with a basic monthly plan starting at $200 per month, whereas Marketo is a great mid-range (expect to spend approximately $800 per month) marketing automation tool for those requiring something that's robust for a 100+ person organization, but who don't want to shell out $2,000/month+ for a tool like Eloqua.

But it's all about niche: HubSpot is great for small (50 or fewer employees), Marketo (more than 50 employees to less than 1,000) and Eloqua focuses on larger businesses (more than 1,000 employees). Again, it's practically splitting hairs on differentiation but another example if of successful businesses getting cloned.

Groupon, an American worldwide e-commerce marketplace, connects subscribers with local merchants by offering activities, travel, goods and services in more than 28 countries. Based in Chicago, it was launched in November 2008. According to an article by Quartz Media Groupon, the fastest company to reach a unicorn billion dollar valuation, in just 16 months. The name Groupon is a blend of “group" and “coupon." The idea that would eventually become Groupon was born out of founder Andrew Mason's frustration trying to cancel a cell phone contract in 2006. He thought that there must be some way to leverage large number of people's collective bargaining power. In 2007 Mason launched The Point, a web platform based on the "tipping point" principle that would utilize social media to get people together to accomplish a goal.

In short, consumers just sign up for their daily deal, sometimes higher than 90% off. The Groupon worked as an assurance contract using ThePoint's platform: as long as a certain number of people signed up for the offer, the “deal of the day" became available to all. If the predetermined minimum was not met, no one got the deal that day.

LivingSocial (Groupon's only true competitor) is a lot like Groupon, in that you decide to purchase a deal and then receive a link to your voucher by next business day. Afterwards, however, you'll also get an assigned link to share with your social network: if three people buy through your link, then your deal is free. Whereas with Scoutmob you're getting a discount that will allow you to spend money at a restaurant of your choice, sometimes up to 50% off. There are hundreds of businesses that have mimicked Groupon, no need to list them all.

The Samwer brothers, founders of Rocket Internet, are often denounced as little more than ruthless copycats of Silicon Valley startups. Alexander, Marc, and Oliver Samwer are the three German brothers behind the infamous incubator Rocket Internet. They first found success by investing in startups like StudiVZ, also known as the German Facebook. They are also the minds behind German auction site Alando, sold to eBay in 1999 for $54 million, and mobile content platform Jamba!, which sold to Verisign in 2004 for $273 million. Simply put, they see a new startup doing well, recruit a team to quickly replicate the business model for a currently non-existing market, and then sell it for millions. Copycats cling to the idea that very little of the internet is original.

But on the other hand, the consumer market benefits from more choices and availability, even if it comes from copycats. Not that this realization does anything to soothe the pain for the violated parties: after doing all of the grunt work, a copycat like the Samwer brothers, replicates their innovative ideas more efficiently. However, the Samwer brothers are outstanding at scaling. Companies like Rocket Internet and Fast Lane Ventures build fast and pivot well. For the most part, they are driven toward being acquired and lining their investors' pockets, which spurs the market, encouraging venture capitalism. Think big picture: new market entry, jobs creation, growth of venture capitalism (global), renewed interest in accelerator programs, are but a few of the benefits. Anyone with a conscience decries copycatting, partly because so many people see startups more as creative entities and less like businesses. As frustrating as copycatting may be it's the nature of the beast.