hi,<p>I was wondering if any of you have successfully copied* already existing product and created its better version and, as a result, ended up with a successful startup.<p>* I am talking about the situation when you are using some tool and thinking to yourself: 'well, it's working, but there are at least 10 things that can be improved, maybe I will create the better version of it?'
There's no such thing as originality in many cases. Everything is based off of something else. Many video games and books have similar plotlines. I had to do research for CRM systems for a nonprofit and there's like over 100 of them. I'm sure they are all different in some way shape or form, but I don't know enough about CRM's to say anything here.<p>There's a really good writeup of a european company called "Rocket" that does exactly this, it was mentioned in hackernews somewhere before<p><a href="https://www.wired.co.uk/article/inside-the-clone-factory" rel="nofollow">https://www.wired.co.uk/article/inside-the-clone-factory</a><p>I have an app idea I wish to pursue that doesn't yet exist, but its the merger between 2 common pieces of software in the market. Building it would be a huge time saver in things I struggle everyday, I imagine others would feel so as well. I couldn't find anything in any alternatives I've tried and tested.
You've literally described Steve Jobs' entire career. Finding the key tweaks that turn a good product into a great product is a very effective business strategy, but actually pulling it off is an art.
That's my bread-and-butter. I take a good SaaS and strip it down so it's simpler for people to use (and for me to build). Then I sell it for significantly less than my competitor. Simple & cheap is "better" for some people.<p>The trick is to find a good niche, so you can build a bunch of semi-related SaaS apps and cross market them. I've found developer related SaaS (web browser testing, PDF generation, log analysis, cron notifications, etc) are highly saturated.<p>To be fair, none of my products qualify as "startups". But building a lifestyle business has a lot of perks (no stress).
Everything is a remix. The problem is, blindly copying just the features of a product is most likely not going to work. You need to understand the whole business and figure out what to copy and what to improve. In other words: you need to understand the customer.<p>Something to read:<p>- "Copycats: How Smart Companies Use Imitation to Gain a Strategic Edge"<p>- <a href="https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/08/03/down-with-innovation-up-with-imitation/" rel="nofollow">https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/08/03/down-with-innovation-u...</a>
Don't forget that while you work on your copy, their product is probably also advancing - by the time you're finished, you will have more to do - plus your own improvements.
Whereas no one would openly admit to copying a product and naming that company publicly - it could be said that many products were birthed from different perceptions of a solution from a given problem space. Which, by virtue of convergent evolution though common customer requirements/user stories and focus groups, along with a standardisation of UX practices, end up with a largely overlapping feature base.