Guy Reams (00:00.846)
Today is day 207, no new thing under the sun. This is one of my favorite quotes from the Bible. So, it probably, they think it was King Solomon or maybe one of his courtesans that wrote the Ecclesiastes in the Bible. And anyway, one of the quotes in there is the following. The thing that hath been,
It is that which shall be, and that which is done is that which shall be done. And there is no new thing under the sun.
So have you ever had that experience where you think of something and you think it's really cool and new, and then you find out that other people have already thought of that or that's already happened? That happens all the time to people. So many people think of that thought when they think of this. What I think of is a bias that people have about starting a business.
People think that great ideas or new innovative ideas and starting a business are the same thing. You'll hear people say, oh, that's a great idea. And the next thing they'll say is, you should start a business.
But the reality is, is that that's actually not true. In fact, that's it's actually the opposite. And this is this is why it's an interesting bias. For example, in today's society, many people will look at Uber as being the quintessential example of the new disruptive idea that takes over an industry. Uber destroyed the taxi business, they say. They say.
Guy Reams (01:55.213)
Uber is a perfect example of coming up with this great idea like I should have thought of that. But actually, the ancient biblical author was right. Uber did not come up with the first ride sharing concept. Carpooling and ride sharing had been around for a long time. In fact, taxi services had already been coming up with online reservation capability. There was even a couple of ride sharing.
companies that have already been created, one of which is in San Francisco called Zimride, kind of solving that. I don't have a car and I live in San Francisco, but I need to get a ride to go long distances thing, right? So Zimride was a new invention in San Francisco.
Even people oftentimes look at the iPhone as being one of the greatest technological advancements in our age and probably will be considered one of the greatest inventions ever. But in reality, the iPhone was not brand new. The concept of a mobile phone with a PDA -like interface was not new at all. In fact, it had been invented probably five years before.
IBM had our product called the Simon. Not a very popular product. In fact, I don't even know if you could get one these days. You can go on Google and Google IBM Simon and take a look at the pictures. It was amazing you'll see a phone with a graphical interface. But man, the technology so changed. In just five years, we went from that to the iPhone. Just amazing. But this idea had...
was not new. I mean, there was a lot of devices, Blackberry, various devices that were already doing this. But the iPhone or Apple and Steve Jobs took that to a whole new level. They dramatically improved on something that was already in place. So this leads me to a very important concept about entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship is not necessarily creating the brand new idea, not creating this new amazing idea. That's not what it means to go into business.
Guy Reams (04:15.021)
Rather, the more typical scenario is something that's already happening. It's not a brand new invention. It's not a completely new disruptive technology or concept. Rather, it's improving upon something that is already there. I mean, even if you were to go look at patents today, you cannot pass a patent without an exhaustive review of the current literature.
of current invention of a current art that's out there. Like you cannot, without having an exhaustive review of what other patents you're building upon, what improvements you're making. So even the patent process recognizes that there is nothing new. You have to differentiate your invention over that of other people in the same domain. So all the darlings in the tech industry over the last several years, none of them had a brand new concept.
Right? Just like Apple and Uber, Netflix was not the first to create a subscription -based streaming service. Amazon was not the first to sell the first product on the internet. Tesla was not the one to create the first battery -powered car. Airbnb did not come up with the idea of renting your home out to travelers. So none of these were brand new ideas. They just took an idea and made it really good where people could consume it a lot easier. So this is my conclusion.
I mean, how many people out there sitting on an amazing business, but keep thinking they have to have something new and innovative to be successful in business? You don't. You don't need to sit around waiting for the miraculous idea to fall from the heavens. Just accept that there are no new ideas under the sun. Instead, work on improving something around you and making it much better. That is most likely to be the successful path that we will discover.