There's a counterintuitive truth I keep coming back to: starting with a solution is often the wrong way to build something meaningful.

We're drawn to elegant solutions. We see a clever piece of technology, a smart business model, or an innovative approach, and we want to apply it. The solution becomes the starting point. But this gets the sequence backwards.

The most robust concepts emerge from deep problem understanding. When you start with the problem – really sitting with it, understanding its contours, who experiences it and how – the solution often reveals itself differently than if you'd begun with a preconceived answer.

This is where something interesting happens with copying.

There's a stigma around being a "copier," but a good copier often outperforms the original innovator. Why? Because they're not copying blindly. They're seeing a proven solution to a real problem and adapting it to a context where that same problem exists.

If something works brilliantly in one market, there's value in recognizing that the underlying problem likely exists elsewhere. The good copier asks: "What problem does this solve? Does that problem exist here? Can this solution transfer?"

This isn't about plagiarism or lacking originality. It's about pattern recognition and efficient problem-solving.

Of course, there are limits. Culture matters. Local context matters. Infrastructure, regulations, social norms – these create boundaries around what transfers cleanly and what doesn't. A solution that works in one regulatory environment might be impossible in another. A product that resonates with one culture's values might fall flat elsewhere.

But these exceptions don't invalidate the principle. They just require judgment.

The trap is letting ego drive the process. Wanting to be original for originality's sake. Insisting your solution must be novel when the problem itself is common and already has working answers.

Start with the problem. Understand it deeply. Then look around – has someone already solved this? If they have, and the context allows, there's no shame in copying well. In fact, it might be the smartest move.