I have one question. How do you think will I have sales by creating the clone of popular application? Sure it will have unique design, user interface, maybe a little different functions, but my application will be almost the same as popular one. Did anyone have such experience?

Depends on what type of application your trying to make and how much you plan to sell it for, compared to how much the other product is available for. What app were you considering making?

The marketing men here will probably be able to explain better, but what you've described is a well established method of business. Pepsi is a clone of Coca Cola, Burger King is a clone of MacDonalds etc.

The trick is to market to a slightly different market segment than the original product.

Yes, true, but you can't just do it blindly. You need several things to make this work:

1) You have to be the second one into the market. The first and second positions get the vast majority of the cash. 3rd place and beyond pick up the scraps.

2) You have to have a hook of some kind that differentiates you (Pepsi : hipper, cooler image than Coke, Burger King : "have it your way", whopper, etc). You can't just show up to the party as a clone and expect to get any dances.

3) Don't just differentiate on price. That's not enough for most people, especially if there is brand loyalty involved (i.e. your competitor has been servicing this market for years and is known and respected). You need to offer something beyond what they do to give people a compelling reason to give you a chance.

Having said all of that, playing follow the leader is rarely the road to success. You'd be better off developing something new that was needed by people and you could own that niche instead of trying to follow this other company...

Thanks guys!

Don't just differentiate on price.
I think it's not very good idea to sell product for lower price. As far as I know the price tells to customers a lot of information. I think if he (customer) will see two products one of wich is costs $10 and the other is $20 he think that the second product have better quality and probably buy it. What do you think? By the way, Pepsi is not cheaper than Coca Cola (at least in my sity)... ha.

You'd be better off developing something new that was needed by people and you could own that niche instead of trying to follow this other company...
Yeah, I know that. But it's SO HARD to figure out what people need in and what is not still developed. I found out (after market research) that the best market now is for Internet software, Multimedia and Utilities.

If you have some sort of trial version/demo, it lets the user see whether the product has quality. They can then compare between the £10 and £20 products. As mentioed above, you have to have something that makes your product stand out amongst the others. Extra features, more easier to use etc...
Good luckon your project.

According to a lecture on advertising I once went to, long ago (30s?) Pepsi tried to promote itself by dropping its prices, hoping this would make it much more popular than Coke.

Instead it got stuck with the label of being the "poor person's drink" and had a terrible time rebuilding its image.

Slightly undercutting someone else's prices is probably a better bet than drastically undercutting. :)

(Pepsi is usually cheaper than coke, anywhere I go. But it has less kick to it so I don't care to drink it long-term...)

I found out (after market research) that the best market now is for Internet software, Multimedia and Utilities.

Well that narrows it down doesnt it. </sarcastic>

It depends by what you mean internet software but in my book that means: browsers, ftp/ssh/telnet clients, download managers, CMS, ping/whois/etc, mail servers/filters, proxies, firewalls. All of these are heavily saturated markets.

Saying multimedia is a very vague: Maya, a screen saver and Winamp can all be considered as multimedia.

No offense dude, but what kind of market research did you do exactly?

grimreaper

But it's SO HARD to figure out what people need in and what is not still developed.
Well, yeah. But that's where the money is. :)

There's gold in them there hills...

Yeah, I know that. But it's SO HARD to figure out what people need in and what is not still developed.
If it was easy, everyone would be doing it.

...But it's SO HARD to figure out what people need in and what is not still developed.

The first requires knowledge of a particular problem space. That's the challenging part. The second, at least, is usually pretty easy (relatively speaking). Once you know what you want to accomplish, you go looking to see if anyone has already done it.

A good place to look for unfulfilled application needs is your own workday. This is usually the problem space you'll be most familiar with. See what's missing, or what could be streamlined or replaced.

Another approach might be to pick an industry or niche that seems underserviced (an unresearched example: flower stores) and start pursuing contract work in that area. As you work with store owners (aka, "doing what you're told") improving their business processes, you'll be in a position to learn the business and see what needs there are that need filling. The result might not be mass market (could be, though), but as a lone wolf developer a niche is much easier to stake out and keep.

Unless you really think you have something significant to add to an existing product, I don't see much of a future in cloning it (for instance, unless you can add a mind-reading interface, I'd avoid trying to write a new word processor; that niche is *dominated*). Besides, if it's a significant product in a significant industry or niche, it's probably well out of the range of "just cloning".

And, just in case you're looking at *my* market niche...well...bring it on. :)

-David

papillon:
According to a lecture on advertising I once went to, long ago (30s?) Pepsi tried to promote itself by dropping its prices,...
Thanks! Very useful story!

Grimreaper:
No offense dude, but what kind of market research did you do exactly?

It's ok. Well, I just looked on Download.com and some other places what category is the most popular. Then I did research that category... After that I downloaded programs that are important for my resear, etc. :)

DavidRM:
The first requires knowledge of a particular problem space. That's the challenging part. The second, at least, is usually pretty easy (relatively speaking). ... ...

Thanks, David! That was VERY useful for me!