I came up with a brilliant app idea. What the idea is, specifically, is unimportant to the story, but just know that it’s such a good app idea that as I thought about it, I realized “someone else MUST have done this already.”

But I didn’t pull out my phone and check the app store (also, it helps that I don’t have a smart phone right now). I took out a pad of paper and I started mocking it up, with the understanding that “if someone’s already done this before, I’m going to see it as a sign that I should at least contact them because we’re clearly very similar thinkers and this person must be very awesome.”

Someone else has already done it. It isn’t available for Android and it’s lacking some of the features I imagine it could have. I’m going to contact the people who built it because one of the founders is JUST like me.

From her bio: “I excel at prolific idea generation, brand voice, dealing with crazy people, thinking visually, team love, gut intuition, powerful presentations, getting wonky with research, digital thinking, voraciously following what’s new, and solving problems.” Right?! Great minds think alike.

Here’s my takeaway from this, and it gets down to the core process of ideation: just because it’s been done before doesn’t mean you should feel like it can’t be done again, or done differently, or at least flushed out past that first moment of “oh, someone else thought of this before me.”

Remember, there’s nothing new under the sun.

Recognize that when you come up with a copycat idea, that you’re connecting into a matrix of likeminded people who are quite likely to be closely aligned to your principles. You can always build it:

Better/Differently/Again/Together