Often we get tasked to help a company design a product that has an established (and successful) competitor. It’s hard not to want to deconstruct what the competitor does, copy all the things that make it successful, and then add your own “special sauce” to your version and hope for the best. Unfortunately, this strategy is also often a recipe for meh. It’s usually incredibly difficult to dislodge a competitor with your one tweak to their product.

Aping a competitor is fraught with problems. First, it’s presumptuous to assume you know which things in a competitor’s design make it successful. It may seem obvious to you (it certainly often does to the authors of countless articles deconstructing the success of products that have done well). But you’re only seeing part of the picture. The product you see is essentially the tip of the iceberg. Without knowing the decisions that went into why the product is the way it is you may be copying as many bad design decisions as good ones. You are also likely completely unfamiliar with the processes they used to arrive at their decisions. Your processes will be different and invariably generate different results. Even if you copy their product faithfully, what will you do when the environment changes and it’s their process that generates success, not a particular implementation at one moment in time? And here’s the worst part, when you crib from your competitor, you are basically rudderless, giving them control over YOUR product. Why would you do that?

Products come from people. The DNA that forms teams and groups is very specialized. You need to find the product that can be created honestly from your group’s specific cultural genetics – something that your group is passionate about. Anything else isn’t genuine. Are you working with a bunch of people who are happy copying someone else’s ideas all day? If so, we suggest you find a new group of people to work with as your current co-workers are passionless.

Either you have a genuine vision for making something better than them or you don’t. And if you don’t, our suggestion is to not bother with the project at all. It’s critical to be honest with yourself here. Most people are not good at being introspective on this point.

Ultimately, if you’re going to create a special product you need to create it based on a vision you have yourself. It can be inspired by other products, but it ultimately must come from a picture in your head, not a picture of someone else’s product.

When we’re creating products with established competitors we avoid looking at the competition until the vision in our heads is fully formed. We want to be pure and cohesive about what we’re building and then check the other guys only when it’s time to make sure we’ve covered our bases. We’re not above borrowing stealing great ideas that work. But they need to be the exception and not the rule.

Be yourself. Customers can tell when you’re not.