I often wonder how much time people invest in the following before going off on their own: 1. Finding similar open source projects to what they want to exist

I often wonder how much time people invest in the following before going off on their own: 1. Finding similar open source projects to what they want to exist 2. Digging into the project to see how close it is to what they want 3. Attempting to contribute to bend it to fit their needs How much of these "really similar project" situations are "I want the project to be mine for marketing / brand / control reasons" vs "I didn't know this existed already"