by Ronald Nzimora

The year was 2003 and we were in Year Three in University.

We were sitting in the newspaper section of the library. I was reading the dailies and my friend Ugo was trying to write an essay and submit it for a writing competition. Something to do with the role of “Financial Issuing Houses In The Stock Market” or something like that.

The competition was sponsored by FSDH and supported by the Nigeria Stock Exchange headed by Dr. Ndi Okereke-Onyiuke then. A N500,000 prize and trip to the U.K awaited the winner.

Stumped for ideas Ugo asked me, not so quietly, “I haven’t even filled one page yet. What do I do?!”

I replied, “Bro, look on the Internet and see what similar articles have been written on this topic.”

“But that’s copying. I don’t want to copy. I refuse,” he insisted.

Feeling slightly irritated and not wanting to look up from the news story I was reading, I told him my favorite quote from Picasso, who said, “Good artists copy. Great artists steal.”

“But that would mean HE Picasso stole.”

“That’s right.” I said, “And today he’s hailed as the best painter the world has ever known.”

Still he refused to listen, “I don’t want to copy. I want to do something completely original.”

So I ignored him, because you see, you can lead a horse to the water but you cannot force it to go to Google and do research for an essay in which that horse stands to win a N500,000 prize.

Today as I sat down to pen my article for YNaija this week, I remembered this story and it’s so apt. I see the same scenario play out with people who want to start a new business.

Are you trying to come up with a solid bankable business idea but get stumped every time?

Well here’s news for you.

Do not try to re-invent the wheel.

Re-Inventing the wheel is expensive, time wasting and energy sapping. And for many who try, nobody buys their new wheel.
Scratch that. As many as 97% of “brand new” business ideas fail.

It’s tempting to want to do something radically new like invent the light bulb and then turn it into a business while at the same time become really famous and take all the glory.

But the truth is, in business, the opposite is really the case. In fact most of the world’s successful business were not original ideas.

Just about every idea worked on now is a result of the following recursive formula: MBNI(X) = NI(1) + NI(2 )+ NI(3)… + MI

Where “MBNI” = “new idea” and NI1, NI2, NI3, etc. equals various new ideas as of yesterday. And “MI” which could be a tiny component of the whole equation, is “My improvement”. Which, again, might be minimal, or zero, at best.

This gives birth to MBNI (My Brand New idea)

I didn’t come up with this magical formular. I stole it from somewhere online and it works.

Here’s proof that some of the most popular products in the world were not original ideas.

– Telescope: Galileo stole the idea for the telescope. He took the original invention by Hans Lippershey, made it a bit longer and more powerful and gets full credit 400 years later for the invention.

– Telephone: Who invented the telephone? Well, Alexander Graham Bell of course? But only after he looked at the failed patent Antonio Meucci filed in 1874 (Story has it Meucci was too poor to send in the $10 patent charge. So… patent was denied. Enter Bell). May God never let you lack a flimsy N1,700 that’ll prevent your success. 😉

– Relativity: Albert Einstein stole part of the theory of relativity from Poincare. Poincare published countless papers on relativity that Einstein had studied before his own first book on relativity. Einstein cited hundreds of sources but didn’t mention Poincare, not even once. Do the research and you’ll see there are several instances of direct plagiarism in his initial book on relativity.

– Online Search: Google. Sergey Brin and Larry page guys stole Yahoo.com’s model and simply did it better than them.

– Star Wars: Whether you call it inspiration or plagiarism, George Lucas took ideas from everything from Taoism to the writer Asimov’s Foundation series, to Joseph Campbell, Greek Mythology, King Arthur, etc.

– Lady Gaga: She’s a combination of Madonna, Elton John, Queen, and Britney Spears. Brilliant combination of elements.

– Nicki Minaj: Lately there’s been an on-going media war between her and Lil Kim, the “Queen Bee” who says Nicki jacked her style.

– Facebook: Did you ever hear about a website called MySpace? What about Hi5? Remember Geocities? Or, heaven forbid, Tripod? Now go and take a look at Facebook again, and tell me it’s not a combination of all the features of these four now dead websites.

– Microsoft Windows: Okay Bill didn’t exactly steal the ideas for the Windows. He bought it off Tim Paterson for the now (and surely you’ll agree with me on this) paltry sum of $50,000. Paltry because that software (and it’s many improvements since then) has made Bill billions of dollars.

Oh now you’re wondering but all these are foreign examples. Yeah I admit it.

– Tantalizers blatantly copied Mr. Biggs’ business model who stole the idea from abroad. The others after them in Nigeria stole from those two.

– ShopRite: Reminds me of Walmart. Hmmmmph. STEAL!

– Deal Dey: simply stole their idea from Groupon. It’s not just them alone. Many more also did. Almost all current successful internet businesses are the result of lifting (and improving) the ideas from past businesses. Even Groupon is a direct descendant of the failed Paul Allen (Microsoft Co-Founder) company, Mercata.

– NairaBet: My bosom friend Otunba Akin Alabi immigrated to the U.K. to “hustle” when he discovered sports betting shops. After winning £50, he wrote an e-book about it which his then girlfriend, now wife Dami, helped him advertise here in Nigeria in Complete Sports. The book was a best seller in weeks. However, readers complained that the sites he asked them to use – Ladbrokes.com e.t.c.) were asking for international passports and a domiciliary high betting balances and asked him if he could recommend a Nigerian based sports bookmaking website they could place stakes on.

So Otunba packed up, left London came back to Nigeria and started his own copy of Ladbrokes. He called it NairaBet.com. Today, it is a multi-billion naira business.

What I advocate is stealing ideas because as you can see from the examples above, ideas are not copyright-able.You may try to get all self-righteous on me about this. Be my guest. But if you keep an open mind you’ll understand what I say is true. Because believe me, you’ll have to search a 1000 years to find a UNIQUE business idea. It doesn’t exist simple.

– Comedy: In standup comedy, stealing (or improving on) routines has been common. Various artistes complain that their lines are stolen by their peers. I know many who have told me so personally. No I will not mention names. Heck, 99% of the popular ones stole Ali Baba’s lines. I haven’t heard or read the guy complain ;-).

– Silverbird Cinemas: In the 1970’s and 1980’s we had a thriving cinema culture. Sure they were replete with Indian movies but isn’t there a chance this fact gave the Murray-Bruce brothers an idea bringing back the cinema would work?

– Jumia: That website surely does look to me like a copy of Amazon.com. Oh what’s more? The Samwer Brothers who run Rocket Internet, the company which owns Jumia are notorious for copying profitable internet startup ideas and replicating them in other countries around the world. STEAL!

What am I trying to say here?

In business, stealing is not a shortcut to success. Stealing is THE ONLY PATH to success in business.

I myself have stolen ALL my business ideas by looking at what other people are doing, UNDERSTANDING how they are doing it, then most importantly WHY they’re doing it the way they are, and then going ahead and creating my own version with some spin on the original idea.

Of course this is ethical stealing. I do not advocate stealing another company’s customer database or logo, or trademark or content or whatever else is proprietary property, because if you do well they will carve you up and have you for food in court.

What I advocate is stealing ideas because as you can see from the examples above, ideas are not copyright-able.

You may try to get all self-righteous on me about this. Be my guest. But if you keep an open mind you’ll understand what I say is true. Because believe me, you’ll have to search a 1000 years to find a UNIQUE business idea. It doesn’t exist simple.

So how do you steal business ideas? Try this.

1. Pick a field you are passionate about:

Whether it’s blogging, romance novel writing, comedy, internet entrepreneurship, art, cooking, cancer research, etc.
2. Read everything you can about the field. Here’s what you have to read minimally:

• At least the history of that field from 1800 on. Try to read at least 10 different sources on the history. It’s all online. Use Google.

• All of the latest blogs in the field. Try to have 100 different sources here. Again use Google to find them.

• All the basic techniques the current leading experts in the field use. Read all of their biographies or autobiographies.
3. Pick your five favorite sources in the field.

For instance, if I wanted to write a novel: I’d pick my five favorite novelists. If I wanted to start a business in “Internet consulting” I’d pick my five favorite Internet consulting companies. If I wanted to blog, I’d pick my five favorite bloggers. If I wanted to be a management consultant, I’d steal directly from Peter Drucker, Jim Collins, etc.

4. Get one element that you like from each source.

What element do you think stands out that makes them a success?

5. Add your own improvement.

Or not. You can even start out with a direct copy and throw in your twist at the end.

6. Ignore all the haters.

Look, less discerning people are going to call you out for stealing ideas. Here’s my candid advice. IGNORE THEM.

I doubt very much that the Samwer brothers, Oliver, Marc, and Alexander (who founded Jumia) stay awake every night wondering who’s calling them names for stealing proven business ideas. On the contrary, each day, they are going from strength to strength.

You should emulate them. In fact here in Africa, you should copy ideas that have worked in this business clime.

Let people call you out and write hate articles. The more people hate you, the more money you will make. Trust me on that.

So about my friend Ugo, did he eventually write his article?

The answer is No. He never got around to writing an original article.

I met him again last week after 7 years. He said he still wonders now what could have happened if he had taken my advice.

I wonder too.

P.S. There is a caveat to this article. There’s really one idea you shouldn’t copy. Do not copy Linda Ikeji’s model and start yet another gossip blog where all you do is copy and paste articles from her blog. Arrrrgh! It’s freaking lazy and annoying.

Have a great day.

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Ronald Nzimora runs Profits Marketing Systems Limited, an online marketing communications and publishing firm. He’s also invested in two more.He tweets from @ronaldnzimora

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.