King Solomon, or at least one of his hired courtesans, recorded the following in the Book of Ecclesiastes: “The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.” This may have been a commentary on the cyclical nature of life and human history, but I have always considered this phrase in terms of innovation.
Many people have equated a new innovative idea with starting a business. “That is a great idea,” they will say, quickly following up with, “You should start a business.” This leads us to this bias on what entrepreneurship is. We equate it with new ideas, new innovation, and new disruptive ways of doing things. Each generation has had a new innovation to point to and say, “I wish I would have thought of that.” For example, we use the example of Uber as a completely disruptive and new business model when referencing this idea of businesses requiring something new under the sun.
However, there is no new thing under the sun; the ancient biblical author was correct. Uber was not the first. The concept of ride-sharing and carpooling has been around for a long time. Taxi services were already experimenting with booking rides with online tools, and there were already services in play that used a similar methodology. I think I remember Zimride in San Francisco a few years before Uber even existed. We can even look at the greatest technological advancement in our time, the Apple iPhone. This was not a new innovation at all but rather a coalescence of the state of innovation at the time. The iPhone was launched in 1997, but there were already samples of devices like this going all the way back to 1992. Take a look at images of the IBM Simon, and you will be astonished at how far and fast the technology has come in just five years.
This leads me to an incredibly important concept about entrepreneurship. Most amazing businesses did not create new ideas. Instead, they improved upon what was already happening. This is the typical scenario; a brand-new invention with a completely new and disruptive concept is exceedingly rare. Even with patents created, a significant amount of the process is based on searching for relevant patents, similarities, and other sources. There is a requirement to differentiate your invention, and you must carefully explain your improvements. I have read through several patents in areas that I am interested in, and without exception, there is a great deal of focus on similar prior inventions in the same domain.
All of the darlings of the innovative tech space are improvements rather than brand-new concepts, like Apple and Uber. Netflix was not the first to create subscription-based streaming, Amazon was not the first to sell products on the Internet, Tesla did not create the first battery-powered car, and Airbnb was not the first to come up with the idea of renting your home out to a traveler.
The conclusion is this. If you want to create a great business and you also want to be successful, then do not waste your time seeking a new idea that will fall miraculously from the heavens. Rather, look at what is already going on and how you might improve something and make it better. That is more likely than not the secret to a successful path.
