Here’s a topic I’ve wanted to write about for some time now. It’s a problem I come across almost daily - 'Someone has already built my idea so what’s the point?' Or 'If something similar exists why don’t I just use it?'
I encountered this problem a lot when I first got into tech, but soon came to realise it was everywhere; in almost every creative pursuit you are likely to find someone or a number of people who have the exact same idea as you. It happened a lot in photography, business and especially in design where it was encouraged to build and improve upon existing ideas.
It can be demoralising at first, stumbling on something you've been planning to build for while. But as time went on, and I pushed my ideas back I realised I was the only one missing out on ideas that I needed. Not other founders who were pushing their ideas. Sometimes this resistance presents itself as good reasons why you shouldn’t build an idea and sometimes its just procrastination disguised.
I wanted to write about this because among the 101 other things that may get in the way of an idea being manifested into the physical world, a lot of people (myself included) generally put off good, worthy ideas because something similar already exists. However, a helpful question to ask is: Is this the best the idea could ever be? Are the creators doing it justice or as well as they can? Are they innovating?
Among Thomas Edison’s 1000+ patents majority of his popular ideas were innovations on pre-existing ideas; imagine if he didn't try to improve the lightbulb, phonograph or motion picture camera because they alredy existed.
So after much needed waffling here are 101 reasons (40 really) to make something even though it already exists:
- Ownership of your ideas
- Its confirmation that the tech exists
- Its confirmation of a market
- To provide alternatives
- Competition
- Servicing a local market
- You may be able to provide better/different branding, design or experience
- Better marketing or sales strategy
- Better customer service
- To get a share of the market
- You can provide a higer quality product
- Different/better problem solving skills
- To service a particular audience like people who may want a luxury experience or people who may want a cheaper alternative
- An opportunity to improve or innovate on existing ideas
- Existing ideas might be bad/underdeveloped, or creators have a different path, vision or mission.
- Service (your contribution to the world)
- Expressing your point of view
- For diversity purposes
- For practice
- Because you never know what opportunitites might come from it
- The parable of the talents
- Because YOU care even if no one else does
- A way of giving back, paying it forward
- Democratising design
- Because first doesn’t always mean best
- Different business model
- Different timing
- You can offer more value
- Your unique background and all the vectors and intersections that flow into your school of thought (for instance my background is in business, the arts (photography, filmmaking & creative direction), sports, tech, design and a bit of psychology; naturally I bring a different flair or perspective to everything I do and I can see how all these disciplines flow into each other)
- An opportunity to combine different disciplines
- Simply for egoic reasons - sometimes just to see if you can, its not a bad thing if you are aware of this. Cos yes, why not use what already exists?
- To learn how to manifest ideas into the physical realm
- To fulfil your potential
- To gain and develop new skills
- A different, creative or more artistic approach
- To maximise your luck
- Because your unique background/experience might make you the best person suited for this problem
- The way you see art or life
- Just showing up gets you further than inaction
- As protest
Finally, a part of me also wrote this for myself, in case I ever get stuck on an idea.