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How to brainstorm great business ideas

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Re: How to brainstorm great business ideas

#71

Post by tappio »

Jack000 wrote: post #63
tappio wrote: post #48

There is an interesting bias going on here. I'm wondering how many people upvoting this text has actually built a business, or just want to believe that what was written here is true? Building a business is messy. Most ideas suck initially. Companies who got the problem right the first time are extremely rare. Just as rare as companies who succeeded with a crappy idea having great execution. The hero ingredient is lu…

I see this argument a lot on hn, and the problem I have with it is that even if correct, it's not really useful. Good idea and execution doesn't guarantee success, but ascribing everything to luck (and basically absolving yourself of all responsibility for success/failure) does guarantee failure. Yeah, at a certain level everything depends on luck - even things like talent and intelligence through the birth lottery.…

I think we actually agree the fundamentals, like most people participating in this thread. I'd say luck is necessary, but is not enough alone. And by maximising the odds you have better chance of winning. By hero ingredient I meant that a steak dish in restaurant needs a good steak, but that does not make the dish alone. There also needs to be other ingredients. Accepting that luck plays a very important role in building something new can help you overcome defeats and surrender yourself to opportunities that appear while working on the initial idea. For me it has not been counterproductive. I guess it matters how we understand "luck" as a concept.

Re: How to brainstorm great business ideas

#72

Post by epiphanitus »

_Understated_ wrote: post #50
tappio wrote: post #48

There is an interesting bias going on here. I'm wondering how many people upvoting this text has actually built a business, or just want to believe that what was written here is true? Building a business is messy. Most ideas suck initially. Companies who got the problem right the first time are extremely rare. Just as rare as companies who succeeded with a crappy idea having great execution. The hero ingredient is lu…

> The hero ingredient is luck. This... 100% this! I've mentored and worked with dozens of entrepreneurs and small businesses over the last few years and I mention this to all of them but it's not a case of "if I wait around I'll get lucky". You still need to be active and work hard and fix the right problem with the right solution and then, if you get lucky, you'll succeed. I teach entrepreneurs to pitch and tell the…

But how would you define luck, anyway? I think it was Oprah who said something along the lines of "luck is when preparation meets opportunity".

Re: How to brainstorm great business ideas

#73

Post by koonsolo »

tappio wrote: post #48

There is an interesting bias going on here. I'm wondering how many people upvoting this text has actually built a business, or just want to believe that what was written here is true? Building a business is messy. Most ideas suck initially. Companies who got the problem right the first time are extremely rare. Just as rare as companies who succeeded with a crappy idea having great execution. The hero ingredient is lu…

> The hero ingredient is luck.

There are different ways to look at things, but personally I'm not a fan of the "luck" apsect. I like "uncertainty" much better.

"Luck" might imply that you might get lucky. Framing your mind into getting lucky is really bad as an entrepreneur (personal opinion).

That is why I like "uncertainty" much better, because whatever you do, there will always be uncertainty whether you will succeed or not. Entrepreneurs operate in complete uncertainty, always.

The failures were just as uncertain as the successes, but if you don't try you will never know. And framing successes as lucky is pretty disrespectful if you look at all the shit that had to be done to get there.

As a special bonus on my "uncertainty" framing: you live in constant uncertainty, yet your customers, employees and investors expect certainty from you. Very hard mentally.

Re: How to brainstorm great business ideas

#74

Post by koonsolo »

samsquire wrote: post #12

I 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…

The problem with ideas is that they start of as perfect in our heads. But the more they touch reality, the more they crumble. They become messy, they start to incorporate tradeoffs.

It takes a lot of perseverance to further shape your idea to match reality.

So I agree that they shouldn't die too fast. An idea is always the starting point, but never the end.

Re: How to brainstorm great business ideas

#75

Post by awayfromhomenow »

epiphanitus wrote: post #72
_Understated_ wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The hero ingredient is luck. This... 100% this! I've mentored and worked with dozens of entrepreneurs and small businesses over the last few years and I mention this to all of them but it's not a case of "if I wait around I'll get lucky". You still need to be active and work hard and fix the right problem with the right solution and then, if you get lucky, you'll succeed. I teach entrepreneurs to pitch and tell the…

But how would you define luck, anyway? I think it was Oprah who said something along the lines of "luck is when preparation meets opportunity".

my favorite quote along that vein is "chance favors the prepared mind". If you're not looking for opportunity, you'll never see it.

Re: How to brainstorm great business ideas

#77

Post by KajMagnus »

ThomPete wrote: post #56
polote wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not really agree with that, how would you explain that founders that have succeed in the past are most likely to succeed again ? And how do you explain that some people are just able to create several successful companies ? Luck is not the best thing to create a company and actually it is almost never the case, luck doesn't last. I'm not saying that we know exactly what works or we know how to transfer this know…

Because they benefit from the previous success which open more doors and make it easier to get press and clients.

It sounds to me as if you think it's luck, and one cannot be good at making an idea happen: Talking with users, UX design, writing software (or hardware/something), marketing, setting a vision, hiring the right people, building teams, talking with the press, etc.

... and thanks to such skills / good judgement, succeed once, and again.

No, it's luck, is the impression I get, when I read what you write. — Maybe that was not what you meant and I'm reading things wrongly.

Re: How to brainstorm great business ideas

#78

Post by ThomPete »

csallen wrote: post #70
ThomPete wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No its realistic. There are many well executing companies with great product market fit that wont be successful. Its very obvious once you actually build a company.

I have to disagree, unless you're talking about black swan events, which are different than the conversation at hand: They're instances of bad luck ruining otherwise-certain success, rather than success being created via good luck. What's an example of a company that had great execution, great product-market fit, and also had solid pricing and distribution strategies, but ultimately failed?

MySpace just as one example.

Re: How to brainstorm great business ideas

#79

Post by ThomPete »

KajMagnus wrote: post #77
ThomPete wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they benefit from the previous success which open more doors and make it easier to get press and clients.

It sounds to me as if you think it's luck, and one cannot be good at making an idea happen: Talking with users, UX design, writing software (or hardware/something), marketing, setting a vision, hiring the right people, building teams, talking with the press, etc. ... and thanks to such skills / good judgement, succeed once, and again. No, it's luck, is the impression I get, when I read what you write. — Maybe that wa…

Why are you assuming that a lot of companies that fail don't do that?

Re: How to brainstorm great business ideas

#80

Post by csallen »

ThomPete wrote: post #78
csallen wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to disagree, unless you're talking about black swan events, which are different than the conversation at hand: They're instances of bad luck ruining otherwise-certain success, rather than success being created via good luck. What's an example of a company that had great execution, great product-market fit, and also had solid pricing and distribution strategies, but ultimately failed?

MySpace just as one example.

It's hard to say MySpace wasn't successful. They grew rapidly, became the largest social network in the world, and sold for $600M within a few years of being founded. That'd be a success for almost every founder.
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