The problem is that ideas are "non-excludable goods":
Ask HN: Any room in the startup world for an ideas man?
11–18 of 18 posts
Re: Ask HN: Any room in the startup world for an ideas man?
#12Sure there is a place for that ! Go to a bank, borrow the $ or mortgage your house, then hire a team to build one of your plans, make it big and use the proceeds to execute the rest of your plans. That's how everybody else does it. Other than that ideas are two a penny, plans are great but executing them is where the work is and where the money is made. You can have all of my 'good' ideas for free... I value them at…
"plans are great but executing them is where the work is [...]" True enough, but some people are good at execution and some people are good at ideas. During the execution phase you're going to need more ideas, probably, to get past your MVP and on to a fully rounded product. Reminds me of the postings the other on Word of Goo - the idea was simple, implementing it was quite hard but additional ideas were added all al…
Yes, but just about everybody has ideas. I can't imagine that those that are good at execution do not have ideas.
The original 'apple' was an idea that many had at the time, two guys with the werewithal to go and execute that idea made it big. I'm sure that in the HCC of the time there were 100's if not 1000's of people that had the idea of a (cheap) computer for everybody.
People that have 'ideas' need to be aware of several really important things:
- everybody has ideas, pretty much all the time
- your idea is most likely not even original ("hey, I thought of that long ago!", yes, so?)
- it might be a great idea but it may never fly, to ask others to risk all to implement your idea for a substantial portion of equity while you risk nothing is out of balance.
- those people that 'had ideas' and made it big invariably were also good at execution.
People that 'just have ideas' usually end up in advertising or marketing where 'brain storm sessions' are their way of minting their idea motor, after all, there you get a salary for just having ideas.
The OP asked if there was room in a startup for an idea guy, the answer is really I don't think so, a startup needs one good idea, then execute it properly the rest is implentation. (Ebay : let's put an auction on the web, YouTube : Let's make it easy to post videos, facebook : let's do 'classmates' but much better). After that the execution takes over, that sort of idea you only need one of to have a viable business.
Sure, during the 'execution' phase you'll need more ideas, but those are usually not going to fundamentally change the nature of the business, unless the original idea wasn't very good...
In an incubator though, there is a place for an idea man. That's where there is added value, also if you're good at ideas you may be good at shooting down other peoples ideas before resources are wasted.
Re: Ask HN: Any room in the startup world for an ideas man?
#13Another element to consider is that sometimes very detailed, thought-out plans are often actually less valuable than tentative, raw ideas. Elaborate plans are brittle because there are many dependencies interwoven into them. Another way of putting that is that there are a lot of implicit assumptions about how the final system will work. But the reality is that there are things that will be unanticipated developments during the actual construction. Some of these will be things that in hindsight should have been anticipated, and others will be things that it really isn't possible to anticipate. In other words, we only really learn what the plan should look like by building.
Building gives us crucial elements of the plan. But there is another essential piece as well. And that is that one person can only figure out so much of how something complicated enough to be valuable should work. This is part of why YC wants multiple co-founders rather than single founders. It's also where you want to get feedback loops working in your favor. So much of life is about feedback loops, whether it is body temperature, or social confidence, or addictive dependencies. You want to get feedback from other people, and the way to do it isn't to show them your ideas, it's to show them the built out manifestation of your ideas, for exactly the reasons in the paragraph above.
One of the many things that makes this startup thing interesting is that for 500 years, specialization has been a trend. Since you only have a few guys in a startup ...
Finally, in terms of working on the skills, why not work on skills by trying to build a straight-forward aspect of one of the simpler ideas? And if this isn't possible because of the nature of the ideas, then the ideas need to evolve to make this possible.
Re: Ask HN: Any room in the startup world for an ideas man?
#14Sure there is a place for that ! Go to a bank, borrow the $ or mortgage your house, then hire a team to build one of your plans, make it big and use the proceeds to execute the rest of your plans. That's how everybody else does it. Other than that ideas are two a penny, plans are great but executing them is where the work is and where the money is made. You can have all of my 'good' ideas for free... I value them at…
Excellent point. The implementation is the hard part.
Furthermore, it is very hard to actually know which ideas are good until implemented, and even with truly great ideas a bad implementation will destroy them while a good implementation can make a mediocre idea successful.
I hesitate to suggest this, but if the ideas are truly original and tie into some concrete product or business product then you could try patenting them. Doing this will require you to invest some real time and money, but nowhere near as much as implementation. That patent would then have some value to a startup looking to implement an idea similar to that so you would be bringing something to the table if trying to join that startup or you could try selling it outright to the startup.
I certainly would never recommend becoming a patent troll, but holding a relevant patent does give you something to bring to the table while you work out a niche for yourself with the founders (perhaps in marketing and fund raising or handling some of the other business aspects or else learning enough to help with implementation.) If nothing else, I have heard of people using patents as resume bullets for more conventional jobs.
Re: Ask HN: Any room in the startup world for an ideas man?
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
"plans are great but executing them is where the work is [...]" True enough, but some people are good at execution and some people are good at ideas. During the execution phase you're going to need more ideas, probably, to get past your MVP and on to a fully rounded product. Reminds me of the postings the other on Word of Goo - the idea was simple, implementing it was quite hard but additional ideas were added all al…
Yes, but just about everybody has ideas. I can't imagine that those that are good at execution do not have ideas. The original 'apple' was an idea that many had at the time, two guys with the werewithal to go and execute that idea made it big. I'm sure that in the HCC of the time there were 100's if not 1000's of people that had the idea of a (cheap) computer for everybody. People that have 'ideas' need to be aware o…
Thanks for the honest response(s). What is this incubator you mentioned? Could you tell me more or link to something that does?
Re: Ask HN: Any room in the startup world for an ideas man?
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, but just about everybody has ideas. I can't imagine that those that are good at execution do not have ideas. The original 'apple' was an idea that many had at the time, two guys with the werewithal to go and execute that idea made it big. I'm sure that in the HCC of the time there were 100's if not 1000's of people that had the idea of a (cheap) computer for everybody. People that have 'ideas' need to be aware o…
Thanks for the honest response(s). What is this incubator you mentioned? Could you tell me more or link to something that does?
Well, news.ycombinator.com is the property of exactly such an institution but there are plenty more out there.
Seed capital funds are another possible avenue.
Re: Ask HN: Any room in the startup world for an ideas man?
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks for the honest response(s). What is this incubator you mentioned? Could you tell me more or link to something that does?
Well, news.ycombinator.com is the property of exactly such an institution but there are plenty more out there. Seed capital funds are another possible avenue.
After a bit of a search around I understand this all much better. Not to mention have a sudden thirst to get involved with that kind of organisation.
I guess I will just release my little plans on HN and enjoy the feedback! Would love suggestions for other places to use my creativity for something worthwhile (for me or a community).
Re: Ask HN: Any room in the startup world for an ideas man?
#18Publish at least some of them, so others can at least evaluate whether you have _good_ ideas.
You are never going to find anyone who will "buy" business ideas. All the people saying that execution is what matters are right. But the _ability_ to generate good ideas and plans is not unrelated to ability to execute! If your work impresses, you might find a co-founder or an opportunity that will put you on the path to being able to do what you want.