American society loves innovators and shuns imitators, but in reality imitation is a phenomenal strategy. It’s how we learn when we are getting started. It’s how you get a jumpstart without needing to start from ground zero. It’s how numerous companies have hit the big time.
In reality Nobody Starts from Scratch. Don’t Reinvent Things. Do what others do by default, look to make your own improvements. A key success factor is determining what facets or features of their actions you should employ for your specific situation, and which ones you should ignore. You don’t need to do exactly what they do, but pull from it what’s useful for you.
In Business
First to market is often a disadvantage. You bear all the cost of research. You spend resources figuring out what didn’t work. Once you have it, it’s typically easier to imitate whatever it is, tweaking or expanding on it, and making an immediate splash. This disadvantage harms innovation, which is (on the whole) a very good thing. That’s why we have intellectual property laws… but realistically the vast majority of endeavors and efforts undertaken have ample prior art to draw from. This is the advantage of using benchmarks, industry standards, and fully just copying what you see others do. It’s the quickest way to learn how something works, and gives you the chance to start putting your own spin on things sooner.