Are there no original ideas left?

I have three ideas for projects that are not entirely original ideas though I am certain will prove to be very successful and profitable. Yet it makes me wonder is it really necessary to be entirely original? If someone has already invented something, does that mean there is no room for a second similar item or items that could be improved upon the original?

Indeed the Original Thought Theory suggests that anything anyone can ever think of has already been thought by someone else. There are no original ideas.

Many people will say you must be original. They say you must act only on your original ideas. They say no one will buy into your idea if it is not fresh and new. Most entrepreneurs will dismiss their idea if they believe it is not original or if someone else is already doing it.

I’m always one of the first to complain about how Hollywood seems to be bankrupt of original ideas. I see absolutely no reason to remake movies such as Karate Kid, Weird Science or Carrie. (I never saw Carrie but I hear it was really good and should probably just be left alone and its’ original form.) If Hollywood is out of ideas for new movies, here are three awesome ideas for them. I am sure Paul Kyriazi, the author of these original stories, would LOVE to talk to any Hollywood producer with a checkbook. The world will thank them for it. But I digress…

“No idea’s original, there’s nothing new under the sun. It’s never what you do, but how it’s done.” – Nas

Sometimes when things are attempted to be improved upon it does indeed fail. Does anybody remember Classic Coke? But if no one tried to improve upon things that already existed then we would have no electric car or solar power. If no one tried to compete with the original we would have no Pepsi. You can also take your original and make it sort of your own as well. There was Marilyn Monroe then there was Madonna then there was Lady Gaga. My hero Richard Branson took the idea of starting an airline, not an original idea, and made it his own. He said, “If I fly on somebody else’s airline and find the experience is not a pleasant one, which it wasn’t 21 years ago, then I think, well maybe I can create the kind of airline that I’d like to fly on. So I got a second hand 747 from Boeing and gave it a go!””

“There are no original ideas. There are only original people.” – Barbara Grizzuti Harrison

Greenland Supermarket is 33,000 square feet and the largest Asian grocery store in Las Vegas. I love to shop there and when I do I always pick up something new to try. Now anyone who knows me knows I am a big fan of sugar free Red Bull energy drink. I don’t drink a lot of them but I enjoy them when I do. One day at Greenland I saw something called Bacchus-D. It called itself an energy drink and when I read the ingredients I noticed they were very similar to Red Bull. Bacchus-D goes for about $6 for a case of 10 where Red Bull runs about $2.60 for one. Even though the Bacchus-D is 3.3oz and Red Bull is 8oz I believe they have the same amount of the ‘good stuff’. Doing a little research on Bacchus-D I learned it is a South Korean energy drink first launched in 1963. Red Bull came out in 1987. Hmmm…

Of course this got me to thinking. Was Bacchus-D the original? Sadly, the answer is no. Lipovitan, which sponsors the Japan national rugby team, came out in 1962. (Perhaps not surprisingly, the packaging even looks the same.)

Lipovitan for Chinese market

I wonder if Lipovitan was the original energy drink? Probably not. Surely the Egyptians had something 4,000 years ago. Or maybe the Romans. Those guys seem to have a lot of original ideas and invented a lot of cool stuff.

Am I going to continue my research on this? No. I have three projects to work on…

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