DJ Benny Buff argues that copying—what he calls “stealing”—is a legitimate way to learn and build value fast. He and his coworker Justin adopted Virgil Abloh’s “3% approach,” where you change just 3% of an existing design. That tiny tweak forces you to dissect every detail of the original. At Kibu, they needed a fresh marketing site but lacked direction. They chose Mintlify’s 2025 site, recreated it pixel by pixel, then gradually drifted from the template. Those initial rebuild sessions revealed why certain colors, spacing, and hover effects worked. Every nuance taught them more about design and their own brand needs. Once they understood Mintlify’s structure, Buff and Justin made choices that felt authentic. They pared down the nav popover, swapped CTA buttons for team photos, and showcased video over screenshots. What began as a 3% change morphed into a 50% overhaul. Each “side quest” decision deepened their grasp of Kibu’s identity. By month’s end, they’d launched a Framer-built site. A footnote notes they later moved to a custom codebase to escape drag-and-drop limits and leverage AI tooling in production. Buff’s takeaway: originality lies in solving problems efficiently, not inventing from scratch. He now starts every project by asking, “Who’s done this before?” He hunts down blogs, podcasts, AI prompts—anything that reveals the full context—and then adds his own 3%. He warns against worshipping the 3% as dogma; it’s a tool for rapid learning in unfamiliar territory. The real work happens after you’ve absorbed the source material and trust your instincts to push beyond 3%.