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3 posts tagged samwer bashing

True Story: The Samwer Brothers are now Cloning Amazon

Please find updates at the end of the article:

Oops, they did it again. TechBerlin found out that the notorious Samwer brothers just launched a new site in Southeast Asia called Lazada. According to a TechBerlin source the company is headquartered in Singapore and geared towards countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Taiwan. Amazon currently has no presence in these countries. 

In good old photo copying manner the Samwer brothers decided to take on the biggest e-commerce company on the planet, cloning Amazon down to the last pixel just like they have previously done with other US startups like Fab , Pinterest (Samwer Version), Airbnb (Samwer Version) or Groupon (Samwer Version). Interestingly enough, Lazada copied Amazon’s old design. According to TechBerlin sources the company is led by ex McKinsey man Maximilian Bittner. TechBerlin has contacted Maximilian as well as Amazon for a statement. 

Lazada’s Design is a one-to-one copy of the old Amazon design

This time the Samwer brothers are attacking one of the biggest companies in the world and it will be interesting to see how that will play out. Will Amazon give in and buy them in the end, just like Groupon or Ebay have done in the past? What do you think?

Update 1: TechBerlin has still not received an official statement from Rocket Internet.

Update 2: Lazada changed their logo overnight. When posting this article yesterday, the logo still had the Amazon style orange curve. It now features a shopping cart instead. 

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Update 3: Caroline Winter from BusinessWeek told TechBerlin today that Oliver Samwer confirmed Lazada’s HQ location (Singapore) with her, thereby verifying what TechBerlin had originally reported. Samwer described Lazada as an “early stage startup focusing on consumer electronics.” The BusinessWeek article was updated accordingly. 

Update 4: Apparently Lazada is also available in Egypt and the Gulf States. 

Update 5: The name of the site was changed from Lazada to Mizado. The logo was changed again. 

by Nikolas Woischnik

The Jason Calacanis Rant against the Samwer Brothers and German Copying on TWiST Berlin

After acknowledging the innovative new startup spirit in Berlin (“this is a fiery group”) during the TWiST Berlin show, the host Jason Calacanis starts a rant against the Samwer Brothers and how they had ruined the image of the German startup landscape.

He said that Germany was getting a “bad name” because of the Samwer brothers whom he referred to as “lying and cheating … photocopying thieves”. According to Jason people around the world started to believe that Germans are not original thinkers and that this was not true! He asked the audience to “boo and hiss” at the Samwers whenever someone runs into them and to convince one’s friends to not work for them. 

The audience loudly cheered in consent! It seemed that finally someone with broad international reach called out what many Berliners think. 

by Nikolas Woischnik

Yuri Milner passes on Samwer investment due to “Rude” Biz Style

It seems that the reputation of the Samwer brothers is not just crumbling among their staff or being subjected to bitter satire these days. Big international players are also starting to turn their back on the trio that is said to leave ethics off the table when doing business. Focus, one of the leading magazines in Germany reported that Russian Billionaire investor Yuri Milner (Twitter, Groupon, Zynga, Facebook) opted out of investing into Samwer’s new fund. According to Focus, Milner and other investors do not want to be associated with the “rude leadership style” of the German clone factory. Rocket Internet is said to raise state funds from the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and Temasek Holding of Singapore instead. #samwerbashing 


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