Speedy Chinese Clone Copies Startup Still in Beta

It’s a pretty solid measure of success when a Chinese company clones your startup before you have even exited the beta stage. This is what has happened to the very good-looking web application Ifttt or IfThisThenThat.

Ifttt began distributing beta invites at the end of 2010, allowing the lucky few to use its service to create online tasks. Among other things, Ifttt lets you connect your social network actions together across various services and networks. For example, if you take a photo on Instagram you can arrange Ifttt so that the photo is automatically posted to Flickr, too. There are other more ingenious tasks you can create, which I personally haven’t tried; for example, having your RSS subscriptions automatically posted to Tumblr.

One of the unique aspects of Ifttt is its simple yet attractive interface. When you create a task it visually holds your hand through the whole process, clearly demonstrating what you are setting up.

But now, a company in China has blatantly cloned Ifttt in almost every way. The website Ruguoyun launched recently (also in beta) and has big hopes for the market here in China. Already there is a high demand for beta invites and apparently their servers are overloaded. One Chinese news site compares the two services here, and we’ve provided a comparison of the front pages below. Ruguoyun already supports linking actions on nine services, with several more in the works including Sina Weibo and Renren. The company behind Ruguoyun is Linggan, who have previously released Fanhuan, Weiping and Kanjia.

Imitation as a compliment?

I reached out to @ifttt to confirm that this is indeed a clone and not a joint project or a partner. They were aware of the website but say they have no affiliation with it. It must be frustrating to see someone so obviously steal both your idea and your execution. On the other hand, it also means that you are doing something right.

And if that wasn’t enough, another company is cloning Ifttt as well. The website, Ruguojiu, hasn’t launched yet but is scheduled to go live soon. It will be interesting to see how much of Ifttt’s design they are stealing.

One way for Ifttt to battle this would be to quickly add a Chinese version of their website, and offer up links to Chinese social media sites like Weibo and Renren. There is a clear need for such a service here in China, as I have experienced myself. Currently I have only found one tool, a chrome extension, that allows me to post both to Twitter and Weibo and that’s (Fawave). Unfortunately it doesn’t work very well.

Do you know of any western start-up that has been cloned as early as this? If so, please let us know in the comments.