You don’t have to reinvent the wheel.
A big mistake that a lot of people make is thinking that they have to reinvent the wheel. I’ve certainly fallen into this trap, and probably will do again. I could be talking about writing, but I could also be talking about business or all manner of other things.
When I mention reinventing the wheel in this article, I’m referring to the idea that when you say, “Start your own project,” people tend to automatically try and create some big, complex scheme. Usually, this comes in two forms:
- Build an affiliate marketing style “Weight loss forever” project.
The reason that this sort of project reinvents the wheel is because you need to either have a massive budget to throw into the saturated market, or you need to have incredibly slick (not to mention a high volume of) copy and other advertising tricks, or an entirely novel angle.
- Build a new project from the ground up that delivers something new.
The average internet start-up will reinvent the wheel because it has a massively complex design to achieve a similar aim. A couple of years back, I knew a guy who was trying to start his own social media network. It was a cross between Groupon and Facebook aimed at University students.
It was a literal reinvention of the wheel in social media terms. It had a points system, various marketing tricks and various different monetisation strategies. It was, of course, in the prototype stages looking for funding.
There Used To Be One Car In Town
The glorious thing about living in the internet era is that you don’t have to go through what the guy above thought was the only option.
In the internet age, you shouldn’t really go for venture capital unless you really need it. You can bootstrap an idea until its viable, and then scale in other ways. According to a venture capitalist I exchanged some emails with a while back, you have much more power in negotiations once you’ve got a working model anyway.
This also parallels traditional publishing in this day and age: You can fight for a traditional publishing contract which will pay you peanuts, or you can wait until you succeed as an indie, whereupon the publishers will come to you in order to grant you funds you don’t need anymore.
Don’t Reinvent the Wheel If You Don’t Have To
That’s just an aside.
Over the weekend, I decided to re-invigorate an old company that I started a few years back. The reason was that that was a simple business idea that simply relied on good execution. I don’t even have to think about reinventing the wheel with that business. It’s an example of the following idea: If you want to start a business that doesn’t require reinventing the wheel, then just think of a problem that you need to solve. Do that better than anyone else.
- People get rich mowing lawns, cleaning windows and fixing drainpipes.
- People pay thousands for websites, flyers, T-Shirts and photography.
- People spend hundreds and thousands on things that they don’t need that they could buy for a fraction of the price if they look elsewhere.
When you see a bad service, you need to think about how you could provide that service in a better way. If you see something where you think, “I can do exactly the same thing, but more efficiently,” then you’ve probably found a business idea that doesn’t require reinventing the wheel.
To relate this to copywriting, think about a lot of the triggers and objections you have naturally when you’re looking at something. It doesn’t even matter if on-the-face-of-it they’re ridiculous:
- Could you package something differently?
- Could you source it for £1 cheaper?
- Could you deliver something quicker than the current supplier?
- Does a business have terrible customer support?
- Is it clear that a company is ripping off their clients by charging hundreds for a service they’re clearly outsourcing to Fiverr? (Hint: Look at big company logos sometime. You see a lot of this.)
The opportunities are out there. Here’s a personal observation which might help based on my years of having bad ideas that seem really exciting:
If an idea seems really good and exciting think twice before you spend days writing a business plan. If you feel like you’re onto something special that you need to capitalise on before anyone else does, then you’re probably trying to reinvent the wheel. Don’t throw the idea away, but be careful.
If, however, you think of an idea and feel like a god-damned idiot for not thinking of it sooner, and you find yourself mad because you realised that you could have done something really simple years ago that would have made you money for years by this point, then you’re probably onto a simple business idea that you can implement quickly, efficiently and profitably.
Sincerely,
Guy who is pretty mad at himself for not noticing something staring right at him for years.
P.S. If this article has inspired you to take action and make loads of money doing simple stuff, don’t worry about cutting me in.
Just remember me when you’re rich.