A couple of weeks ago, I had a great conversation with a good friend about business opportunities and ideas. We started to talk about the topic of people stealing ideas. Most people believe it happens, but I couldn't disagree more.
IDEAS ARE EVERYWHERE
I firmly believe that there are no original ideas; ideas come from a range of existing concepts. Everything is a mixture of something influence by experiences. This brings me back to when I started my first business, a clothing store called Room 322.
What makes a retail store original?
I firmly believe that there are no original ideas; ideas come from a range of existing concepts. Everything is a mixture of something influence by experiences. This brings me back to when I started my first business, a clothing store called Room 322.
As I create my own unique curation of clothes and styles within my store, many people compared us to a dope boutique called Foosh. Fortunately, my business partners and I developed a relationship with one of the founders of Justin, who was essentially mentoring us on how to run and build a successful streetwear store.
While we were starting to get a few fashion seasons under our belt amongst the community, there was this pushback. Some of the loyal fans of Foosh would claim that we were copying and biting their favourite clothing store. Foosh was heavily into skateboard culture, while my store was influenced by the varsity meet streetwear concept. Even though we had different selections of clothes and had a whole other type of game plan of the styles, people still said that we were copying them. We worked hard to educate people one by one about the Room 322 brand as we began to develop our own vibe during that period.
I remember asking myself what made a clothing store an original?
SOMEONE WILL EVENTUALLY TRY TO COPY YOU
Beginners mimic your ideas, your style because they haven't already found their own voice yet. Being an inspiration to imitators should indicate that you are on the right path because you are doing something that people want to follow. Many creators develop a sense of "taste" way before they have the skillset to bring their creations to fruition.
Instead of complaining and confronting them, you should spend that time double down on your efforts. Finding out ways how you can make your work more significant and packed with more value.
YOU SHOULD STEAL LIKE AN ARTIST
A year ago, I was exposed to this excellent book called Steal like an Artists that really opened my mind to this topic of the original idea. The book had so many quotes and pages that really hammered home the idea that sometimes perception is at everything. People would get inspiration from a single artist, and the public would position them as copycats, stealing ideas. Still, as soon as that individual can get a bigger breath of inspiration, sampling ideas from a range of artists, then suddenly they're positioned as originators. I fell in love with this concept of steal Like an artist because it gives you the freedom to build upon ideas. Like the music industry, it allows creatives to sample others to create something (hopefully) better.
I get a ton of inspiration from books, podcasts, other creatives, and people I come across every day. There are so many different resources and opportunities to consume information today because of technology. From unlimited access to content, remix culture has blown up, creating enormous opportunities for creators. The only thing stopping you from taking advance of these opportunities is you. Your fears of not executing due to someone potentially stealing your idea.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
IDEAS ARE EVERYWHERE - You can pull ideas from other industries, creators, books, videos, professionals, and many other places. Sampling ideas and reinterpreting in your own work has always been the game.
SOMEONE WILL EVENTUALLY TRY TO COPY YOU — one of my favorite quotes comes from a book called Thank you and You’re Welcome by Kanye West that has a line, “Get use to being used”. To speakers of the idea that if no one is trying to engage with you then that is a big problem, and might be because you're actually useless.
YOU SHOULD STEAL LIKE AN ARTIST -- Having access to such a vast amount of content through online gives you the opportunity to “steal” from other genres and industries and add to the development for creative voice. Once you get good at sampling and experimenting you can then refine your work through the feedback from your audience to establish your own unique creative style
Have you ever experienced a situation of someone stealing your idea? Where do you get your inspiration from?
Let me know your thoughts in the comments.