

How to be successful: steal ideas and copy people - bartman
http://maxkle.in/how-to-be-successful-steal-ideas-and-copy-people/

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revorad
Before someone launches another ad hominem attack on Max, here's the gist of
this story:

"find a successful business, discover as much as possible about it, re-
implement it all, then battle them for supremacy.”

If you like Max's style though, go ahead and read it - it's well-written,
lightly entertaining and thought provoking.

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gvb
I also liked the insight that ideas are, in themselves passive. The premise of
the article is that you need an enemy, a foil, to invigorate you and your
company.

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Ras_
Team building 101: Find common enemy.

But beware, the team easily turns inward and loses the interest to create
value. Simply beating the enemy isn't necessarily enough.

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dtf
I found this disturbing, morally repulsive, profoundly insightful and utterly
compelling. Blog added to reader.

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jcamp
I like this approach. Not because it gives you an easy start but because it
forces you to look at a problem or business and think about how it could be
done better.

You aren't really stealing ideas and copying people you are improving them. If
you didn't the chance of success would be far slimmer. This is healthy
capitalism. This process forces the other company to respond by improving and
morphing. If they don't they risk becoming obsolete.

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bediger
Re: "stealing ideas" vs "improving on them".

Doesn't your comclusion here go against the USA's entire full-court-press on
maximal "intellectual property"? I mean, we've extended copyrights, we've
allowed just about every vague pipe-dream to be patented, and we've actually
criminalized reverse engineering in a lot of situations.

I sympathize with your viewpoint, but is that the direction we're heading? Are
we heading in the right direction?

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JarekS2
Interesting article - but I think people should note that creating 10% better
business and trying to compete with the incubants is a very risky and time
consuming game. Much riskier and much more time consuming then anyone could
anticipate... Of course - it all depends on the market segment you are trying
to conquer.

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johannchiang
This tactical approach will only work in existing markets with known customers
and known solutions. War is only the tool to achieve the goal, should not be
the goal itself.

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edw519
_But when you work on an idea you came up with yourself, your life is not like
that. There is no enemy..._

Wrong. The enemy is "everyone else". "They're not using my idea, so they're
doing it wrong and I'll kick their asses." I imagine that anyone who ever
invented something new must have thought this at some point.

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TheSOB88
This idea will be incredibly useful to me. Not that you can run a successful
business by copying and iterating on what others have done, but that the human
psyche needs an enemy for motivation.

It's everywhere: people going crazy watching sports, gang wars, people
scheming to get back at those more 'popular' then they are. It's probably a
huge part of why WoW is so successful. Using this to your advantage is bound
to boost motivation.

