Who has already tested and optimized this before me?

Reinventing the wheel is a slow, uncertain inefficient and exhausting enterprise.

It’s a suboptimal way to make progress on our creative projects, and is seldom advisable in most situation.

Particularly since we’re living in the modern digital media era, where anybody can learn anything for nothing. Whatever it is you’re trying to make, odds are, somebody somewhere has already optimized it. There are very few if any significant operational flaws in what exists out there.

And so, instead of wasting resources trying to start from scratch, go leverage the work that’s already been done and divert your time and energy into more worthy goals.

Naturally, there are exceptions. Here’s one of my favorite case studies.

Shark is an innovative skateboarding company that manufactures something called helical wheels. Rather than that old fashioned circular wheel shape that human beings have known, used and loved since the dawn of modern technology, their wheels are composed of three dimensional sine waves.

According to their popular crowdfunding campaign, it’s the best wheel in the world over rough terrain or wet conditions. The wheels perform similar to how auto drivers intuitively know to go over a speed bump at an angle to reduce the shock in their car. They’ve been scientifically tested and proved by a leading engineering university to last fifteen percent longer when cruising, as these wheels have multiple center points compared to one center point on a traditional model.

It’s cliché, but this skateboarding company has literally and figuratively reinvented the wheel. That’s innovation.

But outside of that isolated exception, this strategy is still not advisable. Because why make the creative process so hard on yourself? Pressure is a choice, and there are almost always a pair of giant shoulders you can stand on.

You’ve got to get into the habit of asking yourself and your team:

Who has already done the heavy lifting of testing and optimizing this?

Working in the startup world will teach you to think this way, as most of the companies have no choice but to be small, scrappy and relentlessly resourceful. When there are only seven people on your team and everybody is wearing multiple hats, reinventing the wheel is a luxury you simply can’t afford.

There are too many constraints. Business moves too fast to start from scratch. The best way to iterate quickly is to tap into the power of other people’s energy and learn from those who have already done the work.

That way you’re not starting from scratch, you’re starting from experience.

Remember, we are walking in footsteps, everywhere we go.

No need to reinvent the wheel to get in the race when you can just hitch a ride on somebody else’s chariot.

If you didn’t have to start from scratch, how would you divert your time and energy differently?