I used to think the same thing a lot of founders here think, if the idea isn’t original, it’s not worth building. Then you start looking around properly. Flipkart didn’t invent e-commerce. Ola didn’t come up with ride-hailing.
Zomato wasn’t the first place listing restaurants online. All of them stepped into ideas that already existed and made them work in a way that fit their market. And then there’s one story that really stuck with me.
Two German founders saw an American deals startup model taking off. Instead of overthinking it, they built the same thing across Europe, executed fast, and gained traction quickly. Not long after, the original American company acquired them for a huge amount. They essentially copied the playbook and got paid by the very company that popularized it.
That flips the whole “be original” advice on its head. Because most successful businesses aren’t built on never-seen-before ideas. They’re built on things that already work, just done better, faster, or in a place where they haven’t been done right yet.
Now when I think about ideas, I don’t care if it already exists. I actually prefer if it does. It means there’s demand. It means people are already paying. It means the risk is lower than starting from zero. The real question isn’t “is this new?” It’s “can I execute this better or distribute it smarter?”
Original ideas sound exciting. Proven ideas make money.
The Most Profitable “Unoriginal” Strategy No One Wants to Admit
byu/HomeworkHQ inEntrepreneur
Posted by HomeworkHQ
4 Comments
That’s honestly why proven ideas feel so much easier to work with. You’re not guessing if there’s demand, you already know people want it. At that point it’s less about “will this work?” and more about “can I do this better or reach people more effectively?”
If you’re genuinely stuck thinking of startup ideas, there’s a site called StartupIdeasDB you can easily find on Google. We actually picked up 2 SaaS ideas from there that we’re building right now.
yeah, lowkey “unoriginal” is usually just another word for proven demand, and most people would rather fantasize about novelty than admit distribution, timing, and execution are what actually turn a business into money.
boring works.
Bang on. Now let’s push it a bit. Even better are long standing problems with previous solutions that are outdated and the industry is stagnant. That’s where originality shines.
The problem is founders find “original ideas” for problems that aren’t established enough for enough customers to even want to solve, pay for, and let along change behavior for.
I wasn’t the first synthesizer preset maker
I just knew what pain points in existing preset packs frustrated me, solved those for my own collections, then figured out how to do it faster and more efficiently across multiple instrments and make collections more specifically-tailored for working musicians than most of my competitors new and old, and my web host/platform enabled me to automate *everything* once the products were uploaded, so I could sell at global scale with minimal effort
Now I’m the designer who’s made more soundbanks for multiple instruments than anyon else in the world
And my sales revenues reflect it more and more each month
There is something to be said for just making a more efficient and easy to use version of an existing product
My customers certainly seem to appreciate it anyway