Dear startups, don’t copy — steal ideas and make them your own

Ever since I wrote this article on why copying is awesome and innovation is overrated, I’ve been pondering the whole idea behind Picasso’s often-quoted “great artists steal”. I mean, essentially, what does it mean to steal, instead of copy?

What I think stealing really comes down to is making something yours. Just like how an artist takes a technique and applies it to make a completely new painting. The problem we have with most giants like Samsung or Android and Asian tech companies that have become successful is not that they outright stole Apple’s hardware and software, but that they didn’t make it their own. They didn’t own it. They copied instead of stole. That’s why we think of them as shameless ripoffs.

When Apple released the iPhone, most, if not all, of its pieces already existed in other places. Apple’s team just took all the best stuff and made it theirs. They stole it. They didn’t copy it. By the time iPhones were rolling out to customers, it was clear to people that it was a distinctly Apple product. They put their mark on the ideas and technologies they copied.

The identity crisis

There’s a group of people who often complain about copying. They want to see something innovative and new. They want people to innovate. At the latest Open Game Developer’s Conference hosted by VNG in Vietnam, one of the audience members asked keynote speaker and CEO of VNG, Le Hong Minh, “Why hasn’t VNG come up with anything that is truly new and innovative? Do you not want to?” This was a question that almost everybody in the room was burning to hear answered.

The central thesis is that VNG, Vietnam’s brightest internet company, is somehow uninterested or incapable of innovation. Hong Minh replied with the usual tale of Xerox, which although invented the mouse and graphical user interface, failed to bring those to the market as a sale-able computer. Le Hong Minh’s resounding point was that “innovation is more about knowing how to get a lot of users using your products and making a product that is useful.”

But I think what this entire discussion misses are three key points: 1) Success isn’t innovation; 2) disruption doesn’t have to be innovative; and 3) copying is okay if you can infuse it with your identity.

1. Success isn’t innovation

When Hong Minh talks about innovation here, I think he’s actually talking about success. Certainly, Nikola Tesla is the one that made some of the greatest achievements in electricity but it’s still Thomas Edison that brought them to the market. Essentially, the conversation ought to shift away from innovation and onto the notion of success.

2. Disruption doesn’t have to be innovative

The irony of this Quora answer nails the issue. Essentially, companies that end up becoming hugely successful aren’t necessarily innovators. They just have ridiculous ideas that spot opportunities where no one else saw them, or could take advantage, or they were simply doing it right.

3. Strong identity = stealing

The two reasons above bring me round to the final hammering point: if you don’t have a strong philosophy about how you as a company or team view the world, then of course you’re going to look like a copier. This is a central thing that Asian companies, especially the ones accused of being copiers, need to work on. It’s their identity. It’s the companies that are worried about being copiers that are not true to themselves.

But if you focus on success, disruption, and the strength of your identity, all of these copying accusations won’t bother you, because you know what really matters: stealing is deeper than copying.

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This article by Anh-Minh Do originally appeared on Tech in Asia, a Burn Media publishing partner.