Someone’s Already Doing Your Idea
Competition proves demand.
You finally have the idea. It’s been rattling around in your head for weeks.
You sit down, open a new tab, and type it into Google.
And there they are. Three people. Five. A dozen. Already doing exactly what you imagined—some of them for years.
The excitement drains out. You close the tab. Maybe you tell yourself you’ll think of something more original. Something no one has claimed yet. Some pristine, untouched idea that’s yours alone.
And just like that, before you wrote a single word or sent a single email, it’s over.
Here’s what I want to tell you: you’ve been asking the wrong question. “Is someone already doing this?” is the wrong thing to Google. It was never the right question. By the end of this post, you’ll know what to ask instead—and why the answer changes everything about how you build.
Does Having Competition Mean Your Idea Is Dead?
Competition proves demand. The real question is whether you can serve that demand better.
Look at every business you admire.
Sam Walton didn’t invent the department store: he made it cheaper and more accessible than anyone else had bothered to, and built Walmart into one of the largest companies in history.
Ray Kroc didn’t invent the hamburger: he just executed the idea better than anyone else and turned McDonald’s into a global empire.
Howard Schultz didn’t discover coffee: he made it fashionable, invented an ambiance around it, and built Starbucks from scratch.
The pattern repeats everywhere you look. Netflix didn’t create DVD rentals—they just noticed that late fees were making people miserable and built a better experience around that frustration. Facebook didn’t invent social networks—MySpace had millions of users before Zuckerberg wrote a line of code.
These companies exist because someone looked at an existing product and thought: we can execute this better.
Why Do Most People Abandon Good Ideas Too Early?
They assume “someone is doing it” means “it’s already solved.” It almost never is.
Among 8 billion people on the planet, the odds that something valuable hasn’t been thought of yet are essentially zero. And yet people shelve perfectly good ideas the moment they find a competitor.
Picture this. You want to build an online directory for local contractors. You’re fired up. You’ve been thinking about it for weeks. Then you search and find a dozen companies already doing it.
For a moment you think about closing the tab and abandone the idea. But what if you looked closer first?
Those directories are buried on page four of Google. The websites feel like they were built in 2009 and never touched again. Half of them don’t even work on mobile. The need is there and the execution is just terrible.
So you build it anyway. You make it fast, clear, and easy to use. A decade later, every one of those competitors has vanished or become irrelevant.
The goal was never to be first. It was to be better.
What Actually Separates the People Who Build Something From the Ones Who Don’t?
Execution. The idea is just the starting point.
Garbage collection has existed since humans have walked the planet. That didn’t stop Wayne Huizinga from starting Waste Management with a single truck and a handful of customers—and building it into a Fortune 500 company. Daniel Ek didn’t invent music. He just looked at an industry drowning in piracy and built a cleaner, simpler way to listen. Today Spotify has 600 million users.
Nobody handed them an original idea. They just looked at something being done poorly and decided to do it better.
The people who never start are waiting for the perfect idea to arrive. The people who build something are too busy improving on what already exists to worry about who got there first.
Your Move
Pick one competitor in your space. Look at what they’re doing. Then ask yourself: where are they falling short?
Maybe their product is slow. Maybe their service is impersonal. Maybe they’re impossible to reach. Maybe they’ve been around so long they’ve stopped caring about the details.
That gap is your opening.
The market isn’t saturated. It’s just waiting for someone willing to do it better.
Go be that person.
Great article.
I still get plagued by the "someone else is doing what I do and therefore the market is cornered" thoughts.
But then I realize that I've purchased like 4-5 copywriting courses and about as many copywriting books.
If you can do something better (even if that means better for a particular slice of the broader market), then you probably have something workable.
So very true. I get carried away with the same thoughts. I know what you say is 100% correct. Well done. Sometimes we all need to hear it again and again.