Second Brain

None of My Ideas Are Original: The Curation Method

The Story

“None of my ideas are original. I’m just always looking out for that next thing to copy.” (Source 1).

Harry’s method is curation, not creation. He takes existing marketing tactics, copywriting principles, and campaign breakdowns from other companies and repackages them into short, visual case studies. Curating and recontextualizing existing ideas is the core of his content strategy (Source 1).

One example: he condensed 4 books and a course into 17 images for a single copywriting tips article (Source 2). The original ideas weren’t his. The compression was.

Eddie Shleyner, founder of VeryGoodCopy, described Harry’s skill: “He had the ability of taking the complex and explaining it simply. And that’s the sign of a great teacher.” (Source 3).

The same approach extends to his distribution. He studied Josh Howarth’s Reddit strategy (posting “57 Exploding Trends” framed as a feedback request, getting ~500 upvotes) and copied the approach for his own content (Source 4). He studied the Nike first shoe sales strategy — selling directly to runners at athletic track meets — and used it as a case study (Source 2).

Harry writes his articles in short paragraphs specifically designed for easy conversion into Twitter threads (Source 1). The format itself is borrowed from how people read on social platforms.

Lesson for Creators

Originality is overrated as a content strategy. Harry built 130K subscribers by being the best curator, not the best inventor. The skill isn’t having new ideas. It’s recognizing which existing ideas deserve a better explanation, then compressing them into a format that travels. “4 books into 17 images” is the formula: take something complex, make it simple, make it visual, and put your name on the synthesis.

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