Nasza-klasa: Polish example of the copy-cat approach
Written on June 11, 2008 – 3:25 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Although the Germans have a patent on the copy-cat approach - Freundefeed, anyone? -, Spanish entrepreneurs recently proved to master this unique skill as well. And now there’s 24-year-old computing student Maciej Popowicz from Poland who also seems to get that the best business plan is to import a brilliant idea from abroad. He built Nasza-klasa, a Polish version of Britain’s Friends Reunited, France’s Copains d’avant, and Holland’s Schoolbank eighteen months ago. What came next, is well described by IOL Technology:
It has taken Poland’s Internet world by storm, and claims 11 million users, giving it widest coverage and penetration in this country of 38 million people, well ahead of YouTube’s 6,4 million Polish-based users.
To complete this entrepreneurial fairy-tale, TechCrunch reported earlier today that Estonia’s Forticom has acquired a majority stake in nasza-klasa for 200 million PLN, or 60 million Euros. From now on, Forticom will reach 7.5 million monthly users.
Although it isn’t the classiest way of making money, copying a successful service from abroad does make sense. People generally have the same needs - in this case: connecting with old classmates -, so why not offering them a localized version?
If you liked reading this post, you might want to subscribe to our RSS feed to read more European tech news. We cover Poland quite often. Did you know for example that Poland is Firefox heaven?
I hope you like that post!
Do you have a start-up that we should write about? Contact us! Thanks for visiting and hope you come back again!
Email
Facebook
Netlog
Linkedin
Twitter
The Next Web Blog is closely associated with The Next Web Conference which is held annually in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. At this event speakers from all over the world come together to talk about, and show of, the future of the Web. (
