In this article you will know why a business idea should not be originaland how you can use the ideas of others to improve your own.
How many times have you thought of a business idea that is completely original? Possibly very few or none.
Picasso said: “good artists copy, great artists steal.”.
We are all a mixture of many things: from the genes of our parents; to our teachings and beliefs. In one way or another we are collectors of everything we experience and we select what we consider useful.
The issue is knowing how to use what we take to create something better.
It is not just about copying. It is about taking things from the best and adapting them with our essence. This is how a business idea can be born from others that perhaps lacked something.
Your business idea must not be original.
We are going to support that a business idea should not be original, they are the following example:
Austin Kleon, writer and artist, found an alternative to get out of the creative hole that did not allow him to write. He took newspapers and underlined the words that seemed interesting to him.
His idea began to go viral, but soon after he began to receive criticism saying that it was not original.
It turns out that in the sixties, a British artist named Tom Phillips had already made something similar:
It turned out that Phillips had taken the idea from William Burroughs, a writer who cut up words and rearranged them to create something new.
However, upon further investigation, it was found that Burroughs got the idea from a friend of his, named Brion Gysin.
And the origin of the idea does not stop there. At the beginning of the 20th century, a Parisian poet named Tristan Tzara cut out pieces from a newspaper, put them in a hat and randomly took them out and read them as poetry.
After more investigation, it was reached as far as 1760, where Caleb Whitefoord did not read the newspapers by following the columns; he would read them from right to left and all sorts of curious combinations would come up.
Usually a business idea is a mutation, none is completely original.
How to steal ideas to create new ones.
One of the great geniuses of our time, Steve Jobs, founder of Apple and visionary extraordinaire, said the following:
“YouIt all comes down to trying to expose yourself to the best things human beings have ever done and then trying to incorporate that into what we’re doing…we’ve always felt sorry for stealing ideas”.
Great artists and geniuses are in favor of stealing ideas and history itself shows us that it is a fact. But how do we steal like a true artist and not copy?
In his bestseller Steal Like an ArtistAustin Kleon gives us some guidelines:
1. “Be boring.”
Being boring?…Yes, Kleon maintains that we must stick to routines, since in that way we can create creative spaces of inspiration.
In the same way, he believes that the “crazy life” of many artists is sent to pick up; because being creative requires energy, and wasting it on parties would not be a good investment.
2. Go step by step.
Many great constructions were possible because one brick was placed on top of another.
A great idea may not come suddenly, but be consistent and develop small ideas every day; will inevitably pay off.
If we write one page per day, at the end of the year we will have 365 pages that can result in a complete novel.
3. Set limits.
Isn’t it amazing what some artists can achieve with just a blade and a charcoal? Having limits allows us to squeeze our creativity to the maximum and give rise to incredible results.
The Beatles, the great British band that influenced almost all the music we hear today; started out as a cover band. So there is nothing wrong with taking things from great ideas and creating something “new”.
Conclusion.
All ideas are born from others. We see this with many completely successful projects. Youtube-Vimeo, Spotify-Deezer, Uber-Cabify…
Don’t let the “unoriginality” of your idea stop you from taking chances and succeeding. Just find a way to add value and avoid these rookie mistakes.
And remember, if you are really interested in creating your own business, you can purchase our book “How to create a company while working: Discover how to manage your time, manage your money and motivate yourself while creating a company and working for another” , where you will find all the information you need to found your own company, without having to leave your job.
