3 Stages of the Copycat Secret
Why the Best Companies in the World Started by Copying
My daughter’s favorite place in the world is a convenience store.
Not a theme park. Not a beach. A 7-Eleven in Tokyo.
Japan is her favorite country, so we end up going a lot. Sometimes twice a year. And every single trip, the first thing she asks when we land isn’t “where’s the hotel?” It’s “can we go to 7-Eleven?”
Fresh onigiri she picks out herself. Egg sandwiches that belong in a café. Little strawberry desserts she somehow always finds. She treats it like a destination.
She has never once asked to go to a 7-Eleven at home.
Same logo. Same name. Completely different place. And honestly? She’s not wrong. A five-year-old figured out something most business leaders miss.
Here’s the thing: 7-Eleven is an American brand. Started in Dallas, Texas, 1927. A company called Southland Ice selling groceries next to ice blocks. Japan licensed the brand in 1974, and a manager named Toshifumi Suzuki rebuilt the entire concept from scratch. Got so good at it that when the American parent went bankrupt, the Japanese licensee bought them.
The student bought the teacher.
And now the US is spending billions trying to copy Japan back. 1,300 new food-focused stores by 2030, Japanese-style onigiri and egg sandwiches in American aisles. Revamped stores are already showing 45% higher sales.
The Pattern Nobody Talks About
7-Eleven Japan runs a 27% operating margin. The US runs 3.5%. Same brand.
But this isn’t just a 7-Eleven story. Apple copied Xerox PARC’s graphical interface. Samsung studied the iPhone with a 132-page internal document that became court evidence. Toyota studied Ford’s assembly line and built a manufacturing system Ford itself couldn’t replicate. Tencent copied ICQ in 1999. Everyone called them China’s biggest copycat. Then they built WeChat, so original that Facebook and Instagram started copying them.
This pattern has been hiding in plain sight for decades. The companies that copy spend 60-75% less than the ones that invent. Almost half of market pioneers fail. And the fast followers? They capture three times the market share of the companies that went first.
Copying isn’t a shortcut. It’s a strategy. But only if you don’t stop there.
I’ve been studying this in business, in tech, and honestly in my own career. It always follows three stages. The companies that copied and failed? They stopped at stage one.
1. Copy to Learn (Not Copy to Ship)
Suzuki didn’t copy America’s hot dogs and Slurpees. He copied the format. The idea that a small store could serve a neighborhood’s daily needs. Then he rebuilt everything else.
That distinction is everything.
Tencent didn’t clone ICQ’s interface. They studied what messaging could become in a country where people used internet cafés, not desktops. Samsung didn’t replicate the iPhone. They studied what a smartphone needed to feel like, then went somewhere Apple refused to go: bigger screens, open ecosystem. Spotify didn’t copy Napster. They studied what Napster proved and built the legal version.
There’s a name for this: the “Fast Second”. You don’t win by being first. You win by learning faster.
This isn’t just a business pattern. Herminia Ibarra’s research in HBR found that new leaders do the exact same thing. They learn by imitating mentors. Copying their communication style, their meeting cadence, their decision-making approach. Feeling like a fake during this phase isn’t a red flag. It’s a sign you’re growing.
We all read Netflix’s culture deck. That’s the curriculum. Not the diploma.
2. Develop Your Own Point of View (POV)
This is the stage most people skip. And it’s the only one that matters.
Suzuki’s constraints became his advantages. Dense Japanese cities? He clustered 50-60 stores in tight pockets so one delivery truck could hit them all and shelves could rotate three times a day. A culture that demands quality from a corner store? He built unannounced inspections and daily reports. A market obsessed with freshness? He ate his own store’s bento every single day and gave feedback.
The format was American. The point of view was entirely Japanese.
I’ve done the lazy version of this. I once joined a new team and installed the exact operating rhythm from my previous role. Same standups, same sprint cadence, same review format. Looked right on paper. But the old team had years of shared trust and a culture of candor. The new team experienced the same rituals as micromanagement.
I was copying without a point of view.
It took me months to stop and ask: what would tight feedback and high standards look like for THIS team, at THIS stage? That question changed everything.
Your constraints aren’t reasons you can’t copy Google’s playbook. They’re the reason you can build something Google can’t.
3. You Know You’ve Made It When They Copy You Back
7-Eleven Japan bought the American parent. Now the US is trying to become Japan. Their new CEO said it plainly: “Long-term success breeds complacency. This is our opportunity to reinvent.”
Tencent: “biggest copycat” in 2010. By 2020, Western platforms were copying WeChat’s super-app model. Samsung: lost a billion-dollar lawsuit to Apple for copying the iPhone. A year later, the Wall Street Journal asked: “Has Apple Lost Its Cool to Samsung?” Toyota: studied Ford. Created TPS. Now Ford studies Toyota.
Hawaii tells the story at a smaller scale. Japan bought the Hawaii 7-Eleven operation in 1989. They didn’t copy Tokyo. They installed the principles and rebuilt for local context. Spam musubi since 1994. Different products in every neighborhood. Now the US mainland is studying Hawaii as the model.
And then there’s Famima!! A Japanese convenience store chain that opened in LA in 2004. Copied the output perfectly. Japanese food, clean stores, great design. Never developed a point of view about what a konbini should be in America. All stores closed by 2015.
The food was right. The thinking was missing.
The Real Question
The best companies didn’t start with a breakthrough idea. They started by studying someone else’s. The difference between the copycats that failed and the ones that built empires is always the same three stages.
So here is my question to you:
What are you copying right now? From another team, another company, another leader you admire?
Are you still at stage one, importing the playbook? Or have you started developing a point of view about what those principles would look like in your world, with your constraints, for your people?
Because copying is how the best companies start. The question is whether you have the courage to make it your own.
#Leadership #Strategy #Innovation #Management #SevenEleven #FutureOfWork