Coming from art I'd say: don't be afraid of stealing a little. What matters in the end is your stroke, polish and focus on it. Often good solutions even agree.

Coming from art I'd say: don't be afraid of stealing a little. What matters in the end is your stroke, polish and focus on it. Often good solutions even agree. I had it more than once that I build something and than found someone who had build a super similar solution. I think the fine line for me would be: Don't be obsessed about details and movements of your competitors, don't assume everything they do is good. But check them out for some inspiration. Actually especially those things you can copy from companies that are not even competitors (other core domain), you really should copy. E.g. check out nice empty-states or registration flows to jump start your first implementation (and than iterate for yourself).