A Season of Faith's Perfection
New ideas, old ideas, same ideas
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I told her, "Baby, this not the remix, this a part of the sequel"
No, we not livin' the same, we not makin' the same, we not equal
- ‘Hot (Remix)’, Young Thug & Travis Scott
I am a big fan of the movie, “Finding Forrester” (2000) with Sean Connery and Rob Brown in the starring roles.
For anyone who hasn’t seen it, the movie is about a friendship between William Forrester (Connery) and Jamal Wallace (Brown) and takes place primarily in the Bronx. Forrester, now in his 70’s, is a reclusive Pulitzer-Prize winning novelist who gave the world only one novel written back in his 20’s, and Jamal is a 16-year-old basketball player with a secret passion for writing.
It is a great story about an unexpected friendship that formed between them that changed both of their worlds.
Without giving too much of the plot away, a key point in the movie is when Jamal enters a school writing competition in his secondary school (where he is on a sports scholarship) using an essay with the same title taken from an article written by Forrester years previously.
The school believe Jamal has plagiarised the essay and threaten to expel him and Forrester is forced to come out of hiding to save the day.
Why Should You Care?
A number of weeks back I was writing a draft of one of the weekly newsletters and I sent it to Pete for his thoughts. Whilst the piece was inspired by an article both of us had read, Pete’s view (correctly) was that it was too close to the original and it resulted in me doing a complete rewrite of the piece.
It got me thinking about Peter Thiel and Kirby Ferguson, and Bob Dylan.
Peter Thiel is a well known entrepreneur and investor. He co-founded PayPal and Palantir. He also made the first outside investment in Facebook and was an early investor in companies like SpaceX and LinkedIn.
And he wrote a famous book, Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future, with the goal of helping people “see beyond the tracks laid down” to the “broader future that there is to create.”
Peter puts across an idea that there are very few ‘new’ ideas and that it is easier to copy a model than to make something new.
Doing what we already know how to do takes the world from ‘1 to n’, adding more of something familiar.
But there are few times in life when we create something truly new, and we go from 0 to 1. The act of creation is singular, and the result is something fresh and strange.
But what if you can’t create something brand new? What if your product has a feel of ‘me too’ about it?
Then take that old idea and make it new…make it your own.
A few months back I came across a really interesting Ted Talk called “Creativity is a Remix” by filmmaker Kirby Ferguson.
Kirby starts by stating that Bob Dylan was considered a thief as it was argued that he ‘stole’ a number of his popular songs back in the 1960’s.
(I am not musical in any way so I struggled to identify the overlap butI will assume better people than me could tell the similarities!)
However, Kirby argues that what we call “creativity” is really the output of three distinct actions: copying, transforming, and combining.
To me, it was a lightbulb moment to hear what I had always thought being put out publicly by someone else.
To me, this is the perfect way to describe my own creative process and also they way I challenge my clients to think about their companies.
Specifically, it is a very helpful approach to take when considering strategic decisions.
Maybe there are no new ideas, just new versions of old ideas. That doesn’t mean you can’t be successful.
Keep that in mind when you build your product, visualize your brand, plan your market entry strategy, etc.
Look at what is out in the market or what you know about your competitors. Look at what they have done or what approach they have taken.
Copy it if that works for you. Steal from their playbook.
Or, learn from what they have done and put your own angle on it. Make it your own.
Beg, borrow or steal.
Whatever works for you.
Tell me why I’m wrong…
- Eoin
(In a funny coincidence that just proves my point, I had prepared a rough draft of this piece a number of weeks ago, as is part of my writing process, having seen the Kirby Ferguson talk.
I am also a big fan of ‘The Generalist’ newsletter by Mario Gabriele, and sure enough, Mario wrote a piece on the 23rd August about how companies such as Notion, Airtable, Canva, Fortnite/Epic, etc are all just remixes of previous products and Mario references the same Kirby Ferguson talk to get his point across.
Seems like we are both creating remixes of that one Ted Talk!)
Left Field
How do I describe ‘Left Field’? It’s a place to put the content (newsletters/articles, etc) that we have amassed over recent weeks or previous years that really make us think or change our thinking on a particular topic. All the content will offer an alternative view of some topic in financial services, technology or sport (or a combination of all three!)
The power of community: how Gymshark is killing it in the gym
This is a fascinating recent piece from Sifted, (the new-media site for Europe’s innovators and entrepreneurs backed by the Financial Times) about the rise of Gymshark, the fitness apparel & accessories brand, manufacturer and online retailer based in the United Kingdom.
Launched in 2012 by Ben Francis, then a 19-year-old fitness fanatic and Aston University business student, and some of his schoolmates from his parents’ garage in the British Midlands. Ben’s mother, an NHS nurse, helped him sew the company’s first pieces of gym kit.
In August, General Atlantic, the US growth equity fund, bought a 21% stake in Gymshark to help finance future expansion, valuing the business at $1.45bn.
Anyway, I won’t give away too much. Enjoy the article and feel free to get in touch to discuss more!
- Eoin
Can’t Sleep?
MoneyNeverSleeps podcast episode from this week:
Episode 101: Digital Underground: Ambre Soubiran and Kaiko
Ambre Soubiran, CEO of Kaiko, joins the show this week to talk about how the pioneers of crypto and blockchain laid the foundation for the transformation of capital markets, Kaiko’s role beyond crypto as a financial market data provider…and the best route for sailing across the Atlantic!
Podcast Recommendation: Highy recommend checking out ‘CommuniTea’, the new podcast from the legend that is Gene Murphy, with chats over a cup of tea with the world's best community leaders, to learn about how they got started, what they do, and how they support your startup ecosystem.
Book Recommendation: I referred to the book Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future above by Peter Thiel and I highly recommend it as it presents at once an optimistic view of the future of progress in America and a new way of thinking about innovation.
Article/Newsletter Recommendation: if you haven’t heard of it already, check out ‘No Mercy/No Malice’ where each week, bestselling author and business professor Scott Galloway shares his take on tech and relationships in the digital economy
This newsletter has been written by Eoin Fitzgerald and Pete Townsend
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