The Reason Why Starting A Business By Copying Another Doesn’t Work

1
The Reason Why Starting A Business By Copying
Another Doesnt Work
Its a very common new business strategy. Someone
starts a new business by copying the product or
service that another company already offers. Why?
The usually reason is because they think they can
provide a better version of the offering.
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2
The Reason Why Starting A Business By Copying
Another Doesnt Work
The other day I overheard an aspiring young
entrepreneurs say, We just need to find the
successful people who have a video channel,
Facebook page, and Twitter following and just
copy what they do. Well leverage their paths, do
it quicker, get our fans and audience, and ramp
up sales fast. This sounds reasonable to most
new entrepreneurs, but it rarely ever works.
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3
The Reason Why Starting A Business By Copying
Another Doesnt Work
The issue isnt reverse engineering or
re-creating the product or service, its copying
everything else marketing, sales operations,
vendors, partners, and so on. So yes, you can
copycat the content on a video channel, but what
did that video channel owner do in terms on
marketing that channel to grow the audience.
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4
The Reason Why Starting A Business By Copying
Another Doesnt Work
Its also an issue with copying the circumstances
in time. Lets take Groupon. They grew big
quickly. At the point in time when Groupon was
poised for growth, Facebook was just starting to
monetize their audience with advertising.
 Groupon was able to get advertising for cheap on
Facebook and at a time when few advertisers were
competing for the attention of Facebook users. If
anyone tried to take the same approach today, it
would be cost prohibitive.
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5
The Reason Why Starting A Business By Copying
Another Doesnt Work
Retailers like Walmart and Target are the envy of
many, but they werent the first. General stores
existed for hundreds of years. Prior to Walmart
generation, there were the five and dime stores.
To the customer, the products on the shelves are
the same. Walmart and Target succeeded into using
new technology to streamline operations. By just
copying what these retailers have on their
shelves wont work.
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The Reason Why Starting A Business By Copying
Another Doesnt Work
In a nutshell, imagine you have a set of
instructions for building something. However,
many of the pages in the instructions are
missing. The pages you have are only about 10
of whats need to get the end result. Thats
exactly why just thinking about copying doesnt
work.
www.cynthiakocialski.com
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