Thread by @paraschopra

1/ A thread on INCREASING your CHANCES of STARTUP SUCCESS.

Startups become successful when multiple things 'click' together like a jigsaw puzzle.

2/ There’s so much more that has to go right for a startup that it shouldn’t be surprising that most startups fail.

More variables you tweak, the more likely that you’ll fail in solving the entire equation. This is because all these variables are dependent on each other.

3/ This is why breakthrough innovations seldom make money. There's so much unknown with an innovative idea. When you’re innovating, you’re juggling with most of the balls up in the air.

So, why do tech founders usually seek original ideas for their startups?

4/ Because media glorifies innovations. Journalists are paid to highlighting what’s new and noteworthy.

Wright brothers were celebrated all over the world for their innovation, but Boeing and Airbus reaped all the economic rewards.

5/ In a startup, it doesn’t matter whether you get most of the answers right, because if there’s one answer wrong, you may burn all your funding or patience before seeing any commercial success

So, why not simply copy ideas instead?

6/ Copying is wonderful because it gives you evidence and clues for a solution to the startup multi variable equation exists.

It allows you to let other entrepreneurs make mistakes in solving the equation and save you time and effort.

7/ I’m not alone in my observation that copying rocks. Check out this graphic from the HBR research: imitation is more valuable than innovation hbr.org/2010/04/defend…

Almost all economic value is captured by imitators, not innovators!

8/ @VWO wasn't the first A/B testing tool, and neither @PushCrewHQ the first push notifications platform.

Similarly, iPhone wasn't the first smartphone, nor Google the first search engine or Facebook the first social network.

9/ Being first in the market with an innovative product means little if you’re in the wrong market.

But what’s important to note is what copying alone doesn’t guarantee success.

There are smart copycats and then there are dumb ones (tip: you want to be the former).

10/ Smart copycats know the value of timing in the market. As a market evolves, you want to enter into it early when it’s nascent and growing.

As Peter Thiel says, be the last the monopolize the market. I’ll add my caveat: also don’t be the first to innovate.

11/ When you’re copying, you can’t do surface level copying – you have to commit yourself to understand why a new and emerging category is growing like wildfire and what you can do to beat existing players in your discovered market.

12/ Differentiation doesn't just have to be on tech. It can be on any aspect of the startup success equation (see the first tweet)

In Facebook’s case, differentiation was done by limiting signups to the Harvard campus only invertedpassion.com/details-struct…

13/ Perhaps explore the same idea in a slightly different market, or introduce it at a different price point, or reach the growing market via a new distribution channel.

14/ Instagram’s copying of Snapchat stories is a perfect example of successful copying. Their VP of product said: “this is how the tech industry works”.

If a billion dollar company is shameless about copying, why you – my dear entrepreneur – are hell bent on innovating?

15/ Copying is definitely not the most positive word that our society uses to describe human actions, so when we’re copying, we always try to differentiate in some way. If your neighbor buys a new BMW, you’ll probably buy an Audi (or the same BMW, but a better variant).

16/ Copy unashamedly. (IANAL so make sure you’re not violating any patents or copyrights)

Because in the process of copying, you’ll inevitably add your own personality and you’ll use your life and work experience – you can’t help it but make the copied product uniquely yours.

17/ Perfect copies don’t exist. And in fact, perfect innovation also doesn’t exist. Everything new is built on top of something existing. All I’m urging you to do is to lower your thresholds of originality.

18/ My advice on how to find new startup ideas in 1 tweet: copy a business that’s growing (such that portion of new customers come to you) or discover a business in an established industry that you can improve by 2x or more (such that existing ones switch to you)

19/ When you’re copying, don’t look for which company got funding (VCs take multiple bets for few successes, so their average bet is usually wrong). To get good ideas, look for companies that are growing like wildfire in terms of customers or users.

20/ For B2B, you can go to 3rd party review sites (like @G2Crowd or @trustradius ) and see which ones are getting lots of reviews. You can go to @LinkedIn and see which company is hiring a lot. You can check out @inc5000 and go through the list of fastest growing companies.

21/ For B2C, you can check out @appannie or @SensorTower (they list top grossing apps).

22/ Don’t reply on company acquisitions (most of them fail) or new feature announcements (you don’t know whether they’ll work). You have to take the customer view and notice patterns of what they like or dislike. invertedpassion.com/to-get-good-st…

23/ To sum up:

To be successful, copy what’s already successful in a nascent market and tweak it just so slightly that you’re differentiated in some meaningful way. (And, yes, you can send me your dollars of gratitude if you succeed following my advice).

24/ That's all folks.

Share and retweet my new blog post -> Copying ideas is highly underrated invertedpassion.com/copying-ideas-…