Many times "great business ideas" are born from existing developments that allow them to be perfected
In the race to create a company, you will not necessarily have to start from the starting point like the rest of the squad around you, you will also have the possibility of starting with an advantage and, if so, you should take advantage of it.
Surely you have heard that this or that company started as a "copy" of another already established. Well, this case occurs frequently and many times the one that starts on the basis of the established one is more successful.
Why is this if we know that innovation is part of success? The answer is found in a concept called " Creative Imitation " (CI), yes you read that right, Creative Imitation. It sounds strange, really, creativity results in originals (a Picasso for example), the original cannot be an imitation (again a Picasso). However, this is a very common strategy that does allow creativity and innovation.
Maybe you understand it better with the following simple example:
Imagine that you develop your degree thesis and it looks great, you receive congratulations, you graduate with honors, but you start looking for a job, you get it and you forget about it. Your thesis remained in the libraries and in the archives of your tutor and the jurors. One of the jurors was interested in the subject, since he found it novel, began to study it in depth, obtained more bibliography and specialized in it. He starts by adding a new chapter to his lecture, he realizes that people are interested and it occurs to him to dictate a course outside of class, then a seminar, then lectures, books… It all started with your thesis, the same one from which you you forgot when you started working.
Your thesis is a product, well, new of course, interesting, useful and with a good market. You are the company that "brought it to market," the "original innovator." The jury of your thesis that was interested in the subject, and even wrote books, is the company that applied the CI strategy. Courses, seminars, conferences and books are the "creative part of imitation", they are improvements to your product that come to meet market needs.
Obviously you could have done things right from the beginning, but you did not see the opportunity that others saw and you did not close the door to the IC.
Creative imitation is about waiting for someone to establish the new but only roughly, harnessing it, working on it, and perfecting it to make it useful, satisfy the customer, and do what customers need and want to pay for.
There are many companies that exemplify this strategy, two of the best known are IBM and Procter & Gamble, which have been practicing it for several decades. Their secret is to take advantage of successful products, which are susceptible to improvements and which have an attainable and formed market, in addition to working with less uncertainty than the original innovator.
Requirements to apply creative imitation
- Rapidly growing market - CI meets existing demand does not create it Successful products or services - Creative copycat builds on success of other innovators Customer focus - Creative copycat views products from customer perspective Leadership - As Every innovation, CI requires the aspiration to dominate the market
Although CI offers lower risks than those of the original innovator, it demands more from those who apply it: flexibility, customer service, work and effort.
