Only 6% of original ideas actually become a commercial success. Here's how to solve it.

Too many founders believe when something can be copied, it's worthless.

Yet stats show only 6% of original ideas actually become a commercial success. This means your odds of making it are 16x higher if you actually COPY somebody else.

Quick story to illustrate this:

A few years ago I was considering going into SaaS. I had everything: lots of experience in growth, a pushing market, dozens of technical co-founders, and much more.

So I started considering all the possibilities I had:

Founding an email marketing solution? No, that's done.
A merchant cart? Also done.
A website analytics software? Darn... Also taken!

After months of looking at others, I decided I had no chance of doing SaaS. So I went into the health market.

Now the biggest lesson:

While I became moderately successful in the health market... Dozens of email autoresponders, merchant carts, and analytics solutions came to the market. At that time, I was scratching my head. None of them were original ideas! (yet most of them made thousands of paying customers).

I saw the same pattern in all sorts of markets. For example, I helped a staking company which was a blatant copy of other solutions. My strategy took the company to 800 million in TVL, so it didn't really matter.

The point is it's not about how original is your idea... but how fast you can create a product and how well you know how to market it.

A couple of stats so you can see this in context. Today, about 57% of the purchasing process happens before ever talking to sales.

This means one thing: your buyers are smart, but they are not looking for an original solution. They are looking for the solution they FEEL is perfect for their needs. This paradox means the best tech is not to win. Yet the best positioning does the job.

Another detail:

I've helped dozens of people with advice since my last mistake. Did my own projects, too. Every time I see an original project, I am extra careful with it. My first piece of advice is to build an MVC and validate the idea.

Yes, build a Minimum Viable Community before the MVP.

The reason is that you need to understand what your community wants first. Again, original ideas and competition doesn't really matter. What really matters is your relationship with that community and how well you can deliver what they ask for.

Period.

And the best part:

I've seen completely ugly solutions kill it out there. But it wasn't because they've built an MVP super fast. It was because they had a community and listened in the first place.

So here's what you need to do:

Step #1: Build an MVC first. There are exceptions to this rule, but it's true 99% of the time.
Step #2: Ask your audience what they want.
Step #3: Make them pay in advance.
Step #4: Only then start building an MVP.

Sounds counterintuitive? Then do this: Look at the steps above and you'll realize why so many founders screw up so much. You'll soon realize why I am saying it.