Like many celebrities before her, Jennifer Lopez is going into the online entrepreneur business. According to the pre-launch website of Teeology.com, the “countdown is on” for the latest celebrity startup.
Lopez has teamed up with two well-known entrepreneurs – MJ Eng and Brian Lee – to launch the site, which will be a new ecommerce store selling luxury T-shirts.
Mr Lee has previous form for this kind of thing, having launched other celebrity startup companies with folks like Kim Kardashian and Jessica Alba.
Sample T-shirt from Jennifer Lopez’s New Startup
Rather than being a straightforward shirt shop, Teeology will be a mix of competitions, crowd-sourcing and social networking, with potential customers voting on designs submitted by users. Winning designs will then be produced and be available in the online store.
All designs will be limited editions and sell for $29.
Sound Familiar?
This idea is remarkably similar to Threadless, which has been offering a forum for users to submit, vote on and buy user designed t-shirts for a long, long time.
In fact, with the exception of the Jennifer Lopez connection, it’s hard to see much difference between the two ideas.
So what does make this idea different? What can we learn from Jenny?
The answer to the first question is “nothing”.
The answer to the second is that a business idea doesn’t need to be 100% original – or anywhere near that – to be worth doing.
Many would-be entrepreneurs paralyze themselves into inaction by wrongly thinking that originality will be their only asset in the marketplace.
You’ve probably had the experience of sharing with others an idea you’re really excited about, only to have well-meaning family, friends or colleagues explain to you that your idea has “been done before”.
But that doesn’t matter.
Everything’s been done before.
People don’t stop opening restaurants just because someone has already opened one. There’s always a market for a new twist to an old concept.
So take a tip from Jennifer and don’t waste time trying to find a totally unique business idea.
Just find something to give your business an unusual, intriguing angle. That’s enough.
Then launch it.
