Steal Like An Artist

Who’s the dumbest guy in the world? It’s the gas station owner across the street from the more successful gas station. Every day he watches customers walk through his competitors doors. He ignores the data and he wonders why he’s losing. If the other guy is winning and just doing everything right and you’re not. Then that’s on you.

McDonald’s has an entire department that researches and figures out where to put the next McDonalds. Location is very important. They look at population data, community building trends, traffic patterns, everything that goes into determining if that is a good location or not. It takes an entire team of people and ample resources in time and money to pick the right spot. That investment makes sense because it maximizes the return for Mcdonolds.

Burger king, on the other hand, had two guys that just followed every new McDonald’s that was coming up. Mcdonold’s did all the heavy lifting. Burger King just showed up across the street. A phenomenal model because all the work was already done. Cloning give you a huge advantage of investing less time and energy because someone else has already done the work.

Growing up we are taught that it is wrong to copy the work of others. The work and answers to the assignments were the same for everyone. But it was discouraged for one kid to do the task and let everyone else copy.

I was a hustler who saw the arbitrage opportunity in copying work. I’d either do the work myself or copy off another smart kid. Then I would charge other kids to copy my work. They didn’t have to think or do any work. They just paid me $2 dollars to copy my work. Lazy and easy for them. Profitable for me.

The lessons? It pays to copy. You can pay others to copy them (learn from them). Others will pay you to copy you (teach them). You copy and sell the product (commerce). Courses are built around this idea of copy-paste. If you learn to do what I do then you can make the money I make.

As adults, you get rewarded for copying. Copy someone else’s business, or payment system, or marketing model, or any unique thing they do really well, will result in gains. If you copy the best aspects of something then you will be rewarded for it. If you copy and innovate then the returns can be exponential.

Every industry is built on the cycle of copying. Apprenticeships, consulting, coaching, franchising, licensing, best practices, standard operating procedures, even university education are all about copying and learning. People are constantly paying to shortcut trial and error by copying proven models. That’s how society evolves and grows.

School rewards originality and punishes copying. Business often rewards the opposite. In school, the goal is to demonstrate your own understanding. In business, the goal is the results. The market doesn’t care about original ideas. The market cares if it works. The caveat is that original ideas, that the market accepts, help to create a moat or a first-mover’s advantage.

School & Business

Walmart & Entrepreneurs

Sam Walter, the founder of Walmart, did not invent anything new. Everything in Walmart came from somewhere else. When Sam met the founder of Price Club, the predecessor of Costco, Sam said it was a no-brainer. He set up Sam’s Club. Sam Walter would tell you that in 10 years he could not come up with the concept of Sam’s Club or Walmart. Walmart came from K-mart.

This one time, Sam took his team of managers to a competitor’s store. The team’s feedback was that the competitor’s operations were very poorly run. That Walmart’s operations were much better. Sam replied, “But did you see their candle display?”

The lesson? You can learn from anyone. There are golden nuggets everywhere. All you have to do is learn and act on them. Everything in Walmart came from somewhere else.

The biggest problem with modern “entrepreneurs” is their focus on innovation. Often their goals are to become wealthy. And they see the path is to innovate and do something new. That’s where Airbnb, uber, etc. all come from. Zero to one, as is Peter Thiel’s premise, to go from nothing to something.

Yet, the easiest method to become rich is to copy what somebody else has already done. They’ve already spent the time and energy to test it and make it work. So why not just copy and paste? I don’t mean infringe on copyrighted materials. I mean be inspired and use what works.

If you’re launching a new accounting firm you don’t need to reinvent the wheel. Just copy what others do. The problems are going to be the same. You don’t need to spend days on finding a new way to solve the same old problems. So, learn from others.

Every industry runs on models, they don’t reinvent it every time. When a builder designs a home, they don’t reinvent the kitchen. When a lawyer writes a contract, they don’t start from scratch, they have templates. When a marketer launches a campaign, they look at competitors. The highest performers study patterns. The lowest performers insist on being unique before they’ve earned the right.

Artists & Originality

Steal like an artist. Pure original thought or innovation is rare. Yet what many artists do is they steal bits and pieces from here and there. Then they combine them in a unique way. Creating something that feels, sounds, or looks new. It’s the art of adapting what exists in a way that feels original.

Kobe Bryant did this with basketball. He stole the footwork, shot mechanics, and play style of the greatest player of all time, Michael Jordan. He mastered Hakeem’s Dream Shake. Studied the tactics of positioning and plays with Phil Jackson. Kobe was a student of his craft. Learning from all of the greats. He took what they did, deliberately practiced to the point of mastery, and improved those moves to the 10th degree. Tactical perfection by copying the previous generations' insights and applying them to his game.

Kanye West does something similar but in the space of music. In his hit song Power, he takes vocals from Afromerica by Continent Number 6 (1978), drums from It’s your thing by Cold Grits (1969), and samples from 21st Century Schizoid Man by King Crimson (1969). Looping and mixing them to create a new iconic hit.

Most hip-hop artists do this. By sampling music from the 70s and 80s then chopping them up, looping them, changing the pitch, and introducing new beats, they are able to create something that sounds original. A fresh perspective on old sounds.

This is the art of taste. It’s hard to create a completely new sound. It’s a different skill to use old sounds in a new way. Inspiration must be applied specifically to the new use case. Innovation in the form of recombining different, distinct, or unfamiliar elements.

I apply this in everything I write and do. Not all my work is an original Jagroop thought. Many things are. Yet, most ideas are inspired by something I’ve read, heard, or consumed. I don’t always remember where it came from. But it’s repackaged in my own unique style. Giving it the flavour and vibe of a Jagroop original.

The lesson is to steal like an artist. If you practice what other great people have done and just replicate it then you have an easier journey up the mountain. A shortcut in learning. While inspiration can come from just adapting what others have done to your craft. It’s a highly leverageable skill to have taste. Knowing how to combine what elements to generate something that feels original.

Copying & Others

The biggest reason copying works so well is because no one is willing to do it. Many people fail because they want to be original. Not because they want to be effective. Their ego tells them “I don’t want to copy”. Yet, the market doesn’t care. The market rewards outcomes. Not uniqueness. The amateur asks how to be original. The professional asks what already works.

A pro tip is to pay attention to other people in your niche. If you see them investing in something and you don’t understand it right away, then take a pause and look deeper. There is a chance that they are testing and making high leverage moves that you are ignorant of in applying to your own circumstances.

I’ll give you an example. I know a marketer who invested heavily in setting up high quality green screens and equipment for launching his podcast. Everything was video ready and professionally done. It took some contemplation to understand his play. He was going to create long-form content for his die-hard fans. While chopping up that content into shorter pieces to grow the top of his funnel. Initially, it seemed like a strange investment. With some thought I saw the brilliance.

The last consideration of copying and others is that you know your business is a hit when you start to get copycats. Swell encountered this problem. Their water bottles started to take off. They had a nice design with appealing colors and patterns. All the “it” girls were rocking them. It didn’t take too long for copycats to start ripping them off. Now, Swell had to deal with look-alikes and more competition, but it was a clear sign that their business and products were taking off.

Copying & Success

Intelligent copying is one of the highest-leverage skills in life. It is a shortcut in learning. Not growing through trial and error but through observation. The real skill is in identifying what works, why it works, and how to adapt it. That’s where the money is. All entrepreneurs go through a series of life unlearnings. Letting go of habits and patterns that have been drilled into us through school and our upbringings. We grow past those to learn the benefits of copying others. Learning to steal like an artist by developing taste and applying old things in a new way to our own crafts.

Most people spend their lives trying to be original. The winners spend their lives studying what already works. They improve upon it because they know success leaves clues. So ask yourself, has somebody else already solved this problem? How’d they do it? And how can I replicate it?

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