[deleted]
How to brainstorm great business ideas
11–20 of 88 posts
Re: How to brainstorm great business ideas
#12I am a serial idea writer and I have to agree with the author.
Ideas are inherently valuable, maybe not financially, but they're valuable to have and valuable to society to share.
It makes me angry that people actually believe ideas are inherently worthless. Or that without any code or implementation they're worthless. It's a meme that needs to die. It's like having your cake and eating it too. Here's a free idea for you to think about and contribute to but it's not enough, you want the outcome without any effort too. So you say my idea is worthless.
Ideas are the precursors of RFCs and ISOs and any thing that humanity has ever accomplished. And ideas are meant to be shared.
People that think ideas are worthless are shutting down conversations about good ideas because of this obsession with the idea that execution is all that matters. And so many ideas die on the grape vine because of this poor attitude.
Re: How to brainstorm great business ideas
#13I am a serial idea writer and I have to agree with the author. Ideas are inherently valuable, maybe not financially, but they're valuable to have and valuable to society to share. It makes me angry that people actually believe ideas are inherently worthless. Or that without any code or implementation they're worthless. It's a meme that needs to die. It's like having your cake and eating it too. Here's a free idea for…
I think the ideas being worthless meme is an over-correction of the person that thinks the idea is all of the value and wants to hire an engineer to 'just do the implementation' for little reward.
Ideas have value, and someone who can unite people with a clear vision can do incredible things but the implementation is a big part of the actual difficulty and usually you have to update the idea as you learn more from the implementation.
In general I suspect the implementation is usually harder than coming up with the idea in most cases and fewer people can do it. (Exceptions might be things like General Relativity and initial Bitcoin paper).
Still, obvious value in trying to come up with things from first principles.
Re: How to brainstorm great business ideas
#14I am a serial idea writer and I have to agree with the author. Ideas are inherently valuable, maybe not financially, but they're valuable to have and valuable to society to share. It makes me angry that people actually believe ideas are inherently worthless. Or that without any code or implementation they're worthless. It's a meme that needs to die. It's like having your cake and eating it too. Here's a free idea for…
I think the ideas being worthless meme is an over-correction of the person that thinks the idea is all of the value and wants to hire an engineer to 'just do the implementation' for little reward. Ideas have value, and someone who can unite people with a clear vision can do incredible things but the implementation is a big part of the actual difficulty and usually you have to update the idea as you learn more from th…
I don't argue that ideas are the hardest part or that ideas are harder than implementation.
I just reject that ideas are worthless. I share all my ideas online because I think they have value. I want people to steal them because I want the outcome of the idea: I want the idea's implementation to exist in the world for me to use. Some credit would be nice too of course.
Re: How to brainstorm great business ideas
#15I am a serial idea writer and I have to agree with the author. Ideas are inherently valuable, maybe not financially, but they're valuable to have and valuable to society to share. It makes me angry that people actually believe ideas are inherently worthless. Or that without any code or implementation they're worthless. It's a meme that needs to die. It's like having your cake and eating it too. Here's a free idea for…
I don't think I've ever heard people say that ideas are entirely worthless. Good ideas have enormous potential value.
The argument is that, in general, unlocking this potential requires great execution. You can't (in general) make a good idea successful without it. You can, on the other hand, take bad or boring or tired ideas and make them successful with great execution.
So, great execution (in general) matters more than great ideas.
Re: How to brainstorm great business ideas
#16I am a serial idea writer and I have to agree with the author. Ideas are inherently valuable, maybe not financially, but they're valuable to have and valuable to society to share. It makes me angry that people actually believe ideas are inherently worthless. Or that without any code or implementation they're worthless. It's a meme that needs to die. It's like having your cake and eating it too. Here's a free idea for…
I don't think I've ever heard people say that ideas are entirely worthless. Good ideas have enormous potential value. The argument is that, in general, unlocking this potential requires great execution. You can't (in general) make a good idea successful without it. You can, on the other hand, take bad or boring or tired ideas and make them successful with great execution. So, great execution (in general) matters more…
I've had bad experiences trying to share ideas with people online.
Re: How to brainstorm great business ideas
#17Fantastic post. Lots of weight on the problem discovery area which is the right move and engineers turned entrepreneurs skip this step a lot. I know I did. A book recommended by YC's Aaron Epstein is The Mom Test[0]. The first 50-60% of the book is dedicated to how to discover problems with end clients/users that are worth tackling. I have used the techniques personally and it's great to see what users say is a huge…
I'm also a huge fan of the Mom Test!
In your specific customer interview, I would probe deeper. For most real problems people have, they've hacked together a makeshift solution. It may work, but it doesn't mean it works well. It doesn't mean the problem is solved.
I would ask "how is it like working with this larger company?". If you have any specific pain points working with larger companies that you've seen, I'd ask "how do you deal with pain point X?"
I doubt someone would say something is their biggest problem if they have a great solution for it!
Re: How to brainstorm great business ideas
#18I would also add learning to evaluate your idea(s) objectively.
When you think you've thought of a great idea, by definition, you're biased toward it.
If you then start building it, the sunk cost makes you even more resistant to abandoning it.
In my experience, just "building the product" can take a lot longer than you expect. I've spent several months building out what were mostly CRUD apps.
Why? I didn't realize it at the time, but I was working part time, I had to figure out how to do many things for the first time, I had to keep myself motivated, and I had to do development but also design and PM work.
If I was working on something new, I probably would:
1. think of a problem to work on
2. talk to a lot of users following the Mom Test (keeping in mind your product has many personas of users) to validate the problem
3. think of a lot of ideas to solve the problem
4. somehow identify what idea to prototype first and what the feature set should be
5. prototype it in Figma, show it to users, improve the prototype until customers are asking "when can I buy this?"
I haven't done this yet. If anyone has any suggestions for getting from set of ideas -> a prototype users want, I would love to hear them!
Re: How to brainstorm great business ideas
#19I am a serial idea writer and I have to agree with the author. Ideas are inherently valuable, maybe not financially, but they're valuable to have and valuable to society to share. It makes me angry that people actually believe ideas are inherently worthless. Or that without any code or implementation they're worthless. It's a meme that needs to die. It's like having your cake and eating it too. Here's a free idea for…
I don't think you're wrong. Great ideas are extremely valuable. But I think the disconnect comes from the fact that it's very easy to mistake mediocre ideas for great ones.
Most times when I hear someone's self-described great idea it seems impressive at first, but then fails to hold up to scrutiny. Among other reasons that an idea may not be as valuable as it appears:
* It's not actually original. Even if not widespread, one or more other parties is already working on it.
* "And then a miracle happens..." Some aspect of the idea assumes magic technology or dependencies that don't exist.
* The low-level details are not elucidated and have just been hand-waved away.
* It's solving a problem that not many people actually have.
* It's not economical or practical.
* It requires mass widespread adoption or buy-in from powerful interests before being able to actually have value. There's no gentle gradient to product organic growth.
The contrast, is that it's much harder to be deluded about the value of execution. Great execution is obvious when it happens. Ask people for their great ideas, and you'll often get something half-baked. Ask people for a demonstrated history of execution, and that's pretty hard to fake.
Ideas tend not be valued, not because they're valueless, but because they're hard to value.
Re: How to brainstorm great business ideas
#20I am a serial idea writer and I have to agree with the author. Ideas are inherently valuable, maybe not financially, but they're valuable to have and valuable to society to share. It makes me angry that people actually believe ideas are inherently worthless. Or that without any code or implementation they're worthless. It's a meme that needs to die. It's like having your cake and eating it too. Here's a free idea for…
I don't think you're wrong. Great ideas are extremely valuable. But I think the disconnect comes from the fact that it's very easy to mistake mediocre ideas for great ones. Most times when I hear someone's self-described great idea it seems impressive at first, but then fails to hold up to scrutiny. Among other reasons that an idea may not be as valuable as it appears: * It's not actually original. Even if not widesp…
Thank you for your comment.
I would hope that people share their ideas anyway, so at least it can be discussed. And not get shut down. It's usually obvious if an idea has prior art or if it's not really good.