I have yet to find a single successful person or business model that did not start first by trying to imitate those who were successful. You can waste a ton of effort, time, and money chasing radically new approaches that never amount to anything. I think there is a better way. Swallow your pride and copy what successful people are doing. Later, after you have started to grow stable, you can come up with innovations.
After all, think about this. What right do you have to propose an innovation in the first place? Perhaps you were in an environment that was successful, but you saw a few problems. So now you are going to start your own thing and “improve” on the challenges you were experiencing in the successful business. Great idea, except for one major issue. A successful business gets the way it is for a reason. They are horribly inefficient and make a ton of mistakes while they are being successful. It is so easy to look at problems and criticize them, thinking that you can do better. However, you will learn. Success is earned over a long period of time and by going through a lot of barriers that you have yet to understand.
Other then having prior experience under what pretense are we operating by to think that we can not only replicate the current level of success of an organization with more experience, but that we can be significantly better by implementing our innovation. We like to point fingers at disruptive models but think about this interesting observation.
Uber did not start as a ride-sharing service. It started as a fast way to request luxury cars. They were replicating that market with a mobile app first; the disruptive innovation that we know today came later.
Netflix did not start as a revolutionary streaming service. They started as a DVD rental company by mail. They were not the only ones to come up with this idea. They replicated that model, made it better, and then the innovations came.
Amazon was not the retail behemoth and cloud service provider it is today. It started as a bookstore. They replicated selling physical books on the Internet. They were not the only ones doing this either.
Twitter did not start like it is now. It was initially a directory for podcast publishing. When Apple realized this market, they destroyed the relevance of this idea, so they then started coming up with a micro blogging site.
YouTube started as a dating website. There were many of those on the markets. The innovation came later, and the realization that sharing videos was much more valuable than visual confirmation of your dating prospects.
The common thread among all these examples is clear: innovation often follows imitation. Successful companies rarely start by disrupting markets outright; they begin by replicating existing models, learning from the successes and failures of others, and then gradually introducing their own innovations. This approach allows businesses to establish stability before taking the risks that come with groundbreaking ideas.
The lesson here is simple: don’t rush into innovation for the sake of being different. First, focus on mastering the fundamentals by observing and emulating what works. Only after you’ve built a solid foundation, earned experience, and fully understood the landscape, should you pursue the changes and improvements that could lead to true innovation. By doing this, you increase your chances of success and reduce the likelihood of wasting time, money, and effort on untested ideas.
In short, start by following the path of proven success, and once you’ve earned your place, then—and only then—should you innovate.
