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Being a fast-follower is often an excellent strategy.

I've long thought that somebody will make a fortune by setting up a company that clones successful America-centric startups into Europe, Asia and/or Brazil; using a fast-follower strategy to test core ideas, but then implementing them in untapped markets.

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The Samwer brothers in Berlin (European Founders Fund) do exactly that: http://www.economist.com/node/21525394

The have cloned AirBNB (Wimdu), for example. I seem to recall that they had several large exits by cloning sites like eBay and then selling to the company they cloned, but I can't find the article right now. In a sense, if an American company doesn't know how to penetrate a particular international market, then these clones actually do add value.

Rocket Internet in germany is doing that

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