“Me Too” Business can be a Sexy Jaunt. #unique idea isn't everything

As I completed a talk on entrepreneurship at a B-School, a hand went up and there came the customary question: “Thanks for the encouragement, but how can I become an entrepreneur, I don’t have a unique killer idea?”. Many others in the room, nodded in approval.

I’ve heard this question repeated in so many forums. Yet, I have never understood why we give it such an immense importance?

A new venture’s success is often predicted by the uniqueness, usability, and newness of the idea it brings. I am not undermining the eureka moments that changed our World. But, it’s the misplaced, over emphasis on a bright spark that is contentious. The meat lies in the voyage of an idea from a thought, to a scribble on a beer coaster, morphing into a business plan and finally — execution where the rubber hits the road.

At each stage, an entrepreneur wears different hats. And out of the many hats, one is a constant tinker man, if you please.

Ideas Are Incremental In Nature

Ideas and innovation are peculiar beasts — they don’t come out of thin air. One step gives way to another and it’s an incremental built up trajectory of thought, passed on like a relay through a collective consciousness. Many successful businesses today were not the first ideas. And, their success is because many other factors and much more than a creative eureka moment.

Circa 2000's, attempts were made to get people to hang around “publicly” on portals and websites. SixDegrees.com is probably considered the grandfather of the social networking space. Founded in 1997, the company packed up in 2001. In 2002, Friendster.com came along and rapidly attained the magic number of a million members. Friendster was soon followed by several forgettable others like Jaiku, Bebo, and Tribes. Not to mention Geosites and classmates.com. Most of these didn’t even survive beyond a couple of years.

Remember Tom Freston? Remember Myspace?

In 2003, this industry saw its first big shakeout with Myspace.com. It became the most visited site in USA with companies tripping over each other to buy it. The news corp acquisition race of Myspace for $580M was bitter — so, bitter that Tom Freston, CEO of Viacom, was terminated when he lost the race for the acquisition of Myspace.

The world changed again in 2006 when Google’s Orkut overtook Myspace. Shortly after, coming from nowhere, Facebook clocked 200M visitors in November 2008 and the World forgot about both Myspace & Orkut. Facebook was the proverbial new kid on the block that re-wrote history. Not only for social networking, but online and digital marketing, as well. The game changer Facebook, was a ‘me too’ business idea had seen dozens of predecessors.

How Did We Fill Our Project Reports?

The other day, a much younger colleague asked me: “How did you guys manage to get through College without Google?”

Well, we were not that badly off. We had Dogpile, Ask Jeeves, Lycos, AltaVista, Infoseek, to fill out project reports. Technically, they were not out more than 2–3 years before Google.

What made Google not ‘just another search engine’ was its tremendous technological innovation. While other search engines were trying to be our default pages, Google brought in a breath of fresh air with its simplicity, great algorithms, and the game changing business.

Interestingly, what Google did for the search engine business, couldn’t be replicated by Google+ via social networking.

Generics Save Us all the time

Pharmaceutical generic companies operate in a regulated environment with 100% identical products. Good old amoxicillin, is manufactured by 67 companies in India alone, and sold under over 160 Brand names. The success of these companies varies on unglamorous differentiators. This includes old fashioned distribution models, key opinion leaders, marketing, and pricing.

Worth $20 Billion in revenue, Teva Pharma, manufactures and distributes more than 400 generic drugs in the United States, alone. It’s also one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the World.

McDonald’s and KFC have been at war for their chicks since times immemorial. KFC had almost a 20-year head start before Ray Kroc bought over from the McDonalds brothers.

The current winner in the fast food chain industry, in regards to franchise quantity, is Subway. Almost a decade younger than the older brothers McDonald’s and KFC.

What contributes to Subways success? Subway helps franchise owners make more profits. This includes great financing models, smaller format stores, and a perception of healthier options.

At times, a late entry in the market can have a huge advantage. They have a proven business model and an established product need. The consumer is more knowledgeable and it’s easier selling a product than a concept. The list of “me too’s” across industries is endless, and their study, endlessly fascinating.

“In business, I look for economic castles protected by unbreachable ‘moats’.”-Warren Buffett

The protective moat of a business, isnt just a unique idea, or feature or a unique trait. It is the ability to create value around the idea, tune into customer insight, adapt, improvise and find the gap. That makes tinkering with a “me too” business a very sexy jaunt and a profitable venture.

“Me too” business can be the stuff that dreams are made of. It’s not about creating a brave new world, but just braving the same ol’ world. I believe that there are unicorns and there is not only one tree in Arabia.

Anu Lall

(This article originally appeared in a business newspaper, a couple of years ago. This is the online version)