Every entrepreneur dreams of coming up with a innovative new business idea. It’s exciting. We’re going to change the world, making it better, faster cheaper, greener and we’re going to get rich doing it! Unfortunately the reality is that new business ideas suck.

It’s harder to get people to invest in new business ideas, because investors know that they are more likely to fail. It’s true too, you’re more likely to fail in business by pursuing a new business idea than by creating a business around a proven idea. Sure you can build on a business idea, do it better, faster, cheaper but brand spanking new ideas are risky.

Don’t be fooled into thinking that you can’t make it big without a new business idea. Consider Google for example, they weren’t the first search engine, not even the second, in fact they were roughly the fifteenth search engine and many of the others have been around for several years and already had good, established brands. Now Google is worth billions and only Internet old-timers (like me) can remember the names the original search engines.

Yes some new ideas work, but it’s usually the second, third or fourth business that copies the idea that does best from it. The first business to pursue a new idea tends to rack up the biggest expenses in research and development and marketing, burning through it’s budgets. The followers can then enter the market on smaller budgets, with less risk.

In short, don’t hunt for a brand new business idea, if you want to do something new, be the second, third or fourth business into a new market.

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