cloned then bought the clone back
Demonstrating his 'digital garage sale' content series, Gary recounts buying a batch of Magna at a garage sale for $270 and reselling it for about $6,400 on eBay after fees.
“So for $270, I bought what ends up being about $6,400 in eBay post-fees sales, right? It's crazy because it's like the thrill of the hunt.”
eBay disclosed it sold 45 million trading cards in 2020; at a ~$20 average that is about $900 million of GMV in cards alone, with the broader fractional market estimated around $1.5 billion.
“did 45 million cards sold in 2020. If you just take an average of $20, that's $900 million of GMV just on trading cards, let alone any other type of collectible that's sold on eBay, right?”
Sam marvels at Rocket Internet, the German brothers who scaled multiple companies to $300-400M in sales in two years and famously cloned eBay then sold the clone back to eBay in 90 days for $50 million.
“Two or three brothers who scale rapidly, like they've scaled multiple companies to like $300, $400 million in sales in literally two years. One, they cloned eBay and sold it back to eBay in 90 days for $50 million. So just like crazy intense.”
Sam cites the Samwer brothers (Rocket Internet), who cloned eBay in Germany and sold it back to eBay in 90 days for $50 million, as proof that 'silly' constrained money questions can have real answers if you're willing to pay the price.
“So for example, The Samwer brothers, they own Rocket Internet. They cloned eBay but in Germany and sold it back to eBay in 90 days for $50 million. And I think that if someone wanted to say, I'm going to abandon my family, I'm going to abandon my health, I'm going to abandon my friends, and I'm only going to do something for 6 months, I think they'd be shocked at what can happen.”
Greg Isenberg recounts selling an empty box ('a box of air') on eBay for $3 to $7, making money on the shipping markup. He marketed it honestly as a gag gift and even got press for it.
“I basically sold a box of air on eBay for like $3 to $7 and it would make money on shipping. But I would say like, hey, you're buying a box of air and people would think it was funny.”
Sam recounts how Ali Samwer, after a month at Stanford, cloned eBay at age 22 and sold it for $50 million within 90 days, used the proceeds to clone a ringtone company (sold for $200-300M), then rolled the winnings into the Berlin-based clone factory Rocket Internet, which copied US startups worldwide.
“When he was 22, he cloned eBay. In 90 days, they sold it for $50 million. I believe they used that money to clone a ringtone company, sold that after 3 years, maybe for $200 or $300 million. And then they used all their winnings to turn it into a clone factory called Rocket Internet.”
Out of Berkeley in '95, the top students took 'safe' jobs at Intel and HP while weaker classmates took jobs at unheard-of startups like eBay and Yahoo. When Yahoo IPO'd around '96, those friends got rich, and Hong realized he had been playing the wrong game.
“And meanwhile, our friends who were not as strong students who couldn't get into a good grad school, who couldn't get a job at HP, they ended up taking jobs at other places that we'd never heard of, like eBay and Yahoo or whatever. So like around '96 or '97, maybe '96, whenever Yahoo went public, all these friends got rich, and that's kind of like when you realized that like, oh, like— What game should I be playing?”