Google wasn’t the first search engine but it is the biggest one now.
Chrome wasn’t the first browser but it still has the biggest market share.
Tesla isn’t the first company to make a car but its market capitalization is bigger than many leading automobile companies put together.
For sure, these companies and products were made by super-smart people.
But you can replicate their success, by using the same approach they did.
Make a better product than all the existing ones in the market.
Easier said than done, but you can do it by becoming a user of existing products and looking at them as a scientist, and then finding out what is good about them and what is lacking.
To understand the customer problems and what they want and are not getting, talk to them and read reviews they wrote.
Next, depending on how creative you get or make a totally different product or an enhanced version of what’s out there.
With the first kind of product, you win really big and with the second kind of product your success may not be huge, but you make something worthwhile that the customer pays for.
Either way, you’ll win.
With just three things, freedom of thought, patience, and power of observation.