Copycats

Dearest reader, welcome back to The Frame.

Thank you once again for joining me and 80 other wonderful professionals in this forum for learning and discussion.

Today, we'll jump right into things and build on what was discussed in the last edition: how abstraction makes it easier than ever to build...well pretty much anything. To put it bluntly, a byproduct of easy building is copying.

If you have three hours, this video explains how large language models, the foundation of Ai, are trained by copying... well, pretty much everything.

https://youtu.be/7xTGNNLPyMI

Copycatting is an inescapable part of life. It's the through line of humanity.

As babies we mimic behaviour to get our bearings on the world.

When you were taught to read, you first had to meticulously copy and copy and copy the shapes of words before you could understand written language and download ideas.

This concept was first introduced to me by my favourite dead Canadian, Marshal Mcluhan.

How we interact with language is a very heady topic and one that I'll save for another edition. It is Friday after all.

So, before we explore what it means for us to be copy and paste machines, let's first focus on how to frame your business, content, and ideas in a world filled with copycats.

Method 1: Be First

Being first requires fearlessness.

That's why it's the hardest method to beat copycats of all those that we'll discuss today.

As my friend Adam repeated to me - as dictated to him by his father, Jim, "The first one through the wall always gets bloodied."

Being first requires relentless commitment and exhausting curiosity. That's the reason why they call it the cutting edge. It takes a bit of skin in the game. A chunk of sacrifice.

Hardships aside, a fun thing about being first in business or marketing is that everyone gets to be first at least once. The trick is to be the first to do something ELSE while everyone has finished catching up to you.

I'll give you a real-world example.

In 2019 I opened up a snack shop in Toronto with my wife. We delivered confectionary food via delivery apps like Uber Eats. It was pretty awesome and very fattening. I made a lot of money.

Anyway, my point here is I wasn't the first person to have this idea.

I was, however, the first person to carry locally sourced Jamaican beef patties - a staple of Toronto comfort food. I hit the market so quickly my main competitor bombed my Facebook page with negative reviews.

While he was focusing on me, my team was focused on being first.

We were the first to introduce ice cream and stock unique or hard to find beverages.

We were the first to leverage fun names for combo meals to brand ourselves and drive up margins. That approach landed us on a popular local instagram account organically to spark growth and sales.

Eventually, Uber Eats research got in touch to ask me to ask how I was able to pull the highest retention and cart size in our category.

The answer was simple: I tested products weekly and quickly. I was often first.

I was the first to test new stock and the first to adjust when things didn't sell. When I wasn't the first, like when a competitor down the street won all the candy sales by selling cheaper, loose candy in cups, I quickly learned from what they did first and adjusted my own approach.

In February of 2019, there were two snack shops online. Mine and one down the road.

By then end of 2020, I counted more than 20 similar businesses in the downtown Toronto area targeting the same market.

The funny thing about all that mess is that while everyone was busy setting up copycats, we were the first to use the extra space in our physical location to sell high ticket items like furniture.

Crazy, I know, but moving quickly helps keep the lights on.

We ended up selling the business in 2021. Had I chosen to stay in the snack game, I promise we would have been the first to partner with local chefs to sell sandwiches and the first to try a bunch of other ideas.

Being first isn't an infallible approach, but it is a solid one.

It's hard to be first and therefore - first is hard to copy.

Method 2: Be Reputable

How to Become a Thought Leader in Just 6 Incredibly Difficult Steps by Ryan Law lays a solid blueprint on how to do this. I'll spend less time on this section as you should just check out his advice too.

Reputation is almost impossible to copy.

Your reputation preceding you also technically makes it the first thing people know about you, but let's not go there...

Instead let's discuss why the hardest part about using reputation as a defensive strategy is this: it requires quite a heavy time investment. A lifetime even.

The fastest ways to earn a reputation usually involve alcohol.

The most sustainable ways require consistent work in one primary area of focus.

If your have a reputation for being the best cook, it will be harder for people to see you as the best juggler. That's just the way it is and if you've figured out a way around this please let me know in the comments.

Initial impressions and the phycology around people connecting your reputation to a single area of focus could fill a library section. For now, I'll just say that a reputation takes a while to build and a moment to ruin.

If you choose to go this route, it's important to have a value code and key messages.

Both are topics for another time though. You should probably subscribe if you want to hear about how to publicize your values and key messages in an upcoming edition of The Frame.

Overall, it's tough for a serial copycat to earn a reputation for anything other than copying.

Avoid this trap.

Choose an area of focus and build a reputation around that focus.

If you're crazy like me and good at a bunch of different things, build your reputation for one thing, then create a separate brand identity for the other thing that you do.

Most people don't know that Jim Carrey the comedian is also a great painter.

I bet that even reading that statement you think I'm lying.

That's how hard it is to convince someone a person can be reputable in more than one area. Anyway here's a painting by Jim Carrey.

Remember, no copycat can have a reputation other than that of a copycat.

Like a finishing move in Mortal Combat, your reputation is based on what you specialize in and how the delivery of your specialization differs from that of others.

Method 3: Be You

This method is my personal favourite and also one of the most bittersweet.

Great art divides the audience so the more "you" you are, the more guff you'll get for doing anything.

Just take that as it is.

My grandmother has a good joke about this.

A father and a son approach a small town with their donkey. The father, noticing how tired his son is, asks him to jump on the donkey and enjoy a short break.

In the town the townspeople mock and laugh at the son. "What a disrespectful son" they say. "How can he just watch his tired father struggle at the side of that donkey!"

The two take this to heart and in the next town, the father rides the donkey only to hear jeers of "wow, look how tired that poor boy is. What an ungrateful father to force him to walk without rest!"

They take this to heart and approach the final town carrying the donkey on both their shoulders. The entire town breaks out laughing at the ridiculousness of two people carrying their donkey.

So, here comes the punchline: when you listen to everyone else, you end up making an ass of yourself.

Anyway, this is a long way of saying the trap I see most people fall into around positioning their business or content around themselves is based on limiting beliefs injected into them by others.

In a future where everything is a copy of a copy, personal identity and voice matter.

Two people can approach the same subject completely differently. Even when tools like HeyGen make it possible to clone yourself in video, the things that make you uniquely you are hard too copy.

You just have to take the time build up your self-confidence and point of view.

Is that easy? Absolutely not.

Is it possible? Yes, absolutely.

At the end of the day, copying is inevitable—but being irreplaceable is a choice.

Whether you carve out a niche by being first, build an unshakable reputation, or lean into what makes you uniquely you, the real challenge isn’t avoiding copycats—it’s staying ahead of them.

The world will always have imitators, but the best way to win is to keep creating, evolving, and pushing forward. So, what’s your next move?

Thank you for reading this edition of The Frame. Did you enjoy it?

If so share it on Linkedin or drop a comment to keep the conversation going. Heck, I'd even appreciate a cheeky repost!

This week’s companion links:

• Spotify Selection for jamming on these ideas: Copy of A by Nine Inch Nails
• Read Marshall McLuhan's The Medium is The Massage for free here: https://archive.org/details/pdfy-vNiFct6b-L5ucJEa/page/n9/mode/2up

How do you feel about copycats?

What are your strategies for creating a defensible brand in a world where everything is easy to copy?