He was a PhD student in America in the post-dot.com boom, and he saw the future.
He quit his studies, returned to China, and built a social network, inspired by Friendster. An ugly, unwieldy duckling, it flopped.
He tried again, this time copying the hot college social network, Facebook, calling it Xiaonei. The name, which means “On Campus,” was not the same as the original, but the rest of the interface was, down to the phrase “A Mark Zuckerberg Production.” A popular site, he couldn’t keep up with server costs, and sold off his FB doppleganger (which later evolved into the social networking service Renren).
He created a Chinese version of Twitter called Fanfou. As Lee Kaifu wrote in his book AI Superpowers, “the clone was done so well that if you changed the language and the URL, users could easily be fooled into thinking they were on the original Twitter.”
After Fanfou got shut down by the government for its controversial political commentary, Wang Xing from Fujian Province tried again, this time in the highly competitive group-buying discount market.
Five thousand companies competed in a business that Groupon built, a powerhouse since its IPO in 2011. Groupon could not keep up with Wang, and his growing company, Meituan, which took the group-buying discount idea as far as he could before jumping on the smartphone revolution and building a system that created repeat customers for merchants, and a super app for consumers.
Today, Meituan is a leading Chinese technology platform offering deliveries for food, groceries, electronics, cosmetics, medicine delivery, purchase of tickets for movies, hotels, trains and planes, access to repairs, laundry, and shared bikes….you name it.
Copy Cat
Meituan persevered in the intense competition of the Chinese market, where copying is a matter of survival, and Wang was a self-proclaimed serial copycatter.
In the Western world, Wang was criticized heavily, as Lee wrote in AI Superpowers.
To the Silicon Valley elite, Wang was shameless. In the mythology of the valley, few things are more stigmatized than blindly aping the establishment. It was precisely this kind of copycat entrepreneurship that would hold China back, or so the conventional wisdom said, and would prevent China from building truly innovative technology companies that could “change the world.”
In China, however, the conditions for breakthrough innovation seen in America are not as robust. China has a strong market economy, but it still needs to develop more mature, more transparent, fairer institutions that support private enterprises and reward risk taking and creativity. And so, Chinese organizations, or really any aspiring organizations in any developing economy, must copy.
That was the insight I took away from Prof. XIANG Bing, Founding Dean of the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business (CKGSB). On Day 1 of CKGSB’s Asia Start Program, an immersion program designed to introduce leading AI companies in China to business leaders, policy makers and educators from around the world.
Xiang emphasized that spending immense amounts on innovation has a low chance of success – a sure way to go out of business quickly. Not only does copying allow you to leverage a business model that works, the strategy of copying has a long track record of success.
When I arrived in Japan in 1986, that country still had difficulty shaking its reputation for mimicry, a lasting image of knockoff imitations from the post-war years. But as BCG leaders, James C. Abegglen and George Stalk, wrote in Kaisha – The Japanese Corporation, copying is a vital step in growing a business and an economy, even in America.
All too often, the capacity to assimilate technology is called “copying,” and dismissed. Yet economic progress by definition involves copying, in the sense of moving into industries and products that have been pioneered by others. In the high-growth U.S. economy of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Americans took pride in what was termed “Yankee ingenuity.” By this was generally meant the taking in of European discoveries and developments, adapting and commercializing them, and building on these imported technologies.
Xiang has advised some of the biggest corporations in China and the West, and he has a simple but powerful process for success in China.
“It’s so easy!” he said. “Look at the top sector in the United States. Copy the business models of top companies there. Do a few of them. List on the New York Stock Exchange. Become a billionaire in five years. 15 years later, you can think seriously about innovation, only after you have $10 billion in wealth, capital. Then you will have the organizational capability and the ability to survive if you fail in innovation.”
Walk Before You Run
In fact, Xiang advises business leaders in developing countries, like Indonesia, to mimic successful business models in China.
“Wise people copy,” he says.. Why? Because you need to “learn how to walk before you learn how to run.”
Meituan is one of those companies in China that walked (copying first and accumulating resources to take risks and innovate) before learning to run.
One of the stops in my 5-day tour of AI companies in the Asia Start program, Meituan today is a center of digital and robotics technology, partnering with over 40 universities and research institutes worldwide.
They established the Tsinghua University-Meituan Joint Institute for Digital Life, and the Meituan Academy of Robotics Shenzhen, and invested RMB 21 billion (nearly USD3 billion) in technology R&D in 2024 alone.
They have 24,000 tech specialists focusing on R&D, roughly a fourth of the company’s entire employee base.
They need this advanced technical know-how as, for example, there are only a handful of companies in the world figuring out how to make drone deliveries efficient, effective and safe.
It’s not easy to pull off. You need to understand a drone’s optimal load capacity and energy consumption, how to navigate dense city landscapes and inclement weather, how to ensure integration with existing logistics, security of data and safety in the case of falling drones, and of course passing regulatory requirements to fly drones in public air space.
Today, Meituan is getting all that done, making drone deliveries in the major cities of Shenzhen, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Beijing, as well as more recently in Dubai and Hong Kong.
Meituan is not only learning to run. It’s learning to fly.
ARTICLE FAQS
- Why is Meituan an important company to study? Meituan shows how a firm in a fast-moving market can scale by copying proven ideas, adapting them, and then investing heavily once it has the resources to take bigger risks. It is an example of how companies in developing economies grow in stages before attempting breakthrough innovation.
- Why did Meituan begin by copying foreign platforms? China’s market rewards speed and execution. Copying working models reduced early risk. The market let Meituan focus on local needs, rapid iteration, and survival in a market crowded with competitors. Copying was a path to building cash reserves and technical strength.
- Why do experts argue that copying can be a smart strategy in developing economies? High uncertainty, limited capital, and weaker support systems raise the cost of failed innovation. Copying reduces those costs. It also helps firms learn modern models, build talent, and generate the scale needed to fund more ambitious research later.
- How did Meituan evolve from a copycat into an innovator? Once Meituan achieved financial strength, it began building large R&D teams, investing heavily in robotics and logistics technology, and forming partnerships with top universities. These investments allowed it to lead in fields such as drone delivery and integrated digital services.
- What does Meituan’s story suggest about how companies should approach innovation? Firms often need to master proven business models before pushing for breakthroughs. Growth, capability, and capital create the conditions for bolder moves. Innovation tends to flourish only after a strong foundation is built.
- Why does Meituan’s development matter for leaders outside China? It highlights the value of disciplined sequencing. Leaders in fast-growing markets can use copying to enter new sectors, learn quickly, build resources, and prepare for later innovation. Meituan’s story reflects a wider pattern seen across many rising economies.
Great read. Innovation at scale. Copy-Walk-Run…FLY!