Anything you can do, I can do niched

Bad copycat

Taking someone else’s successful idea and trying to reproduce it for sale to the same crowd as the original is a bad move. Leave this technique to the generics, who will offer similar products for lower prices. This is not a startup idea.

It doesn’t matter if you think you can improve on the original product. They can too….and they will.

This is Jaiku vs. Twitter. Look, it doesn’t matter that Jaiku might be more stable or even a better product than Twitter….the ONLY way Jaiku wins is if Twitter completely blows it, or if Google decides to heavily promote them (which doesn’t count for the purpose of this post). I don’t want to be in a situation where the leader has to stumble in order for me to get ahead. Especially not the leader that I admired enough to attempt to replicate.

Zune vs. iPod. You get the point.

There is a way to succeed with a “bad copycat”, and that is to move on someone else’s idea before they have succeeded or after they have failed because of reasons you are 100% sure you can avoid.

Good copycat

Taking someone else’s good idea and applying it to blue ocean where it will sell to a different crowd is a good move.

It doesn’t matter if you cannot achieve the feature set or breadth of the original product, because you aren’t competing with it. Your product will be revolutionary to your niche and your audience. This is a good place to be.

We did this with mytrade. While netvibes, pageflakes, igoogle and myYahoo all battled out to be the start-page for the masses in a red ocean, we took the concept and applied it to the niche we knew best. That worked out and mytrade will continue to thrive because in finance, we ARE the original and we will continue to push, innovate and expand our footprint.

Who will make the iPhone of car dashboards? Who will create the Flip of HD projectors?

There are a few rules to being a good copycat

1. Don’t just copy: The original idea is merely a spark upon which to build a flame. You must add originality and value for your audience.
2. Promote and encourage the original: By definition, if your idea is a good copycat, you aren’t competing for users with the original. It is to your benefit for the original to have massive success, because it establishes behaviors in the masses that make your niche product easier to adopt. Believe me, I wish that everyone who came to mytrade had already lived comfortably with an iGoogle page.
3. Cut the cord: Once you’ve created your good copycat, it’s important not to remain dependent upon the original for your ideas. This is now your product, your business. Grow it to fit the desires of your blue ocean. Listen to your early adopters and keep your eye out for new trends and technologies to apply to your niche. In other words….think and do.