Knowledge creation is the hardest thing humans do. If anything in your plan requires you to figure something out *from scratch*, 1) try desperately to make sure there's no other way to get that knowledge, but 2) if there's not, then you're generating genuine value.
Examples: if you're trying to do a job well for the first time, bring in someone and watch how they do it. You learn more from observation than trial and error 100x.
Another: market creation. The costs, risks, and difficulties in creating a new market are immense. But if you get it right, it's enormously valuable.
Knowing whether to create vs copy comes down to risk tolerance and positioning.
Knowing whether to create vs copy comes down to risk tolerance and positioning.
Creation can give you an advantage against incumbents, but that doesn't mean anything if you can't pay the bills. It's perhaps better to start with copying - lower growth, lower risk - and then crank up into creation mode once you have resources to enable it.
This applies to startups, design, art, music, whatever it is you're doing. Anything with a market dynamic (which is almost everything) where options compete against each other. See what the current equilibrium is and if you can play at that level before you try and break it.
