Page 60 - The Business Idea Factory: A World-Class System for Creating Successful Business Ideas

Copy ideas

Befo r e 1981 when Jack Welch became CEO o f GE, the co mpany was r esistant to ideas o r pr o ducts
“not invented here” and concentrated on creating all ideas within the organization’s boundaries. Jack
set a new vision, “Someone, somewhere has a better idea” and happily adapted these ideas for specific
needs o f the co mpany. Within the next 20 year s, GE’s value r o se 4,000% and Jack Welch was called
CEO of the Century by Forbes magazine. In a documentary he said, “It’s a badge of honor to have
found from Motorola a quality program, from HP a product development program, from Toyota an
asset management system.”

No matter ho w clever yo u ar e, no matter ho w pur po seful yo u ar e, yo u will never be able to cr eate
more ideas than thousands of geniuses before you. If you want to become a successful business ideas
creator, first you need to learn how to copy and then how to innovate on top of existing ideas. If you
created an outstanding idea but later realized that it was created by someone in the past, you have
wasted your time. Why? You could have copied and applied this idea to your business and spent time
on creating new ideas on top of existing ideas. Your customers don’t care who has created an idea, the
only thing they care about is who has the best product and service on the market.

Do you know why ideas are not copyrightable? Because copying is how progress is made. All
innovators copy ideas from each other and innovate on top of them. Imagine that the idea of
producing a computer was owned by one company. If it were so, computers today would probably be
extremely expensive and far less advanced.

The USA built its economy during the industrial revolution by copying ideas and technologies from
Europe and later innovating on top of them. Japan built its prospering economy after World War II by
imitating and copying U.S. and European technologies. Since the 1990s, China has been actively
copying ideas and technologies from the USA, Europe and Japan and its economy is rapidly growing.

Innovations and business ideas depend on the exchange of ideas. New ideas are combinations or
modifications of existing ideas. The more life experiences you have, the more ideas of others you
know, the better ideas you will be able to build on top of them. With the development of the internet
and cheap transportation, you have access to billions of ideas around the world. Learn them, copy
them, modify them and you will be able to multiply many times your effectiveness at producing
successful business ideas.

Very often people fall into the trap of thinking that the ideas they produce should be completely
o r ig inal, and sig nificantly limit their cr eative pr o ductivity. Do n’t be o ne o f them. If yo u r ealize that
completely original ideas do not exist, stop trying to create something out of nothing and expose
yourself as much as possible to ideas of others, you will increase your creative productivity many
times.

Most everything I’ve done I’ve copied from somebody else. – Sam Walton

Good artists copy, great artists steal. – Pablo Picasso

We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas. – Steve Jobs

When people call something “original,” nine out of ten times they just don’t know the references or
the original sources involved. What a good artist understands is that nothing comes from nowhere. All
creative work builds on what came before. Nothing is completely original. – Jonathan Lethem