Nobody’s going to steal your idea • Hacker News Board

Re: Nobody’s going to steal your idea

#111

Post by robomartin » Mon, Nov 05, 2012, 1:48 AM UTC

aortega wrote: post #106

robomartin wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Ideas" and "market opportunities" sort of go hand in hand Only when the idea precedes the exploration of the opportunity space. Have an idea -> Build a prototype -> Show it around -> Close some sales. Here the idea is related to the market opportunity. It triggered a search for the opportunity when someone was interested or puzzled enough to do the work. Few will invest in an idea unless there's some kind of "suga…

I'm a "optics" (actually photonics-crypto) PHD candidate that also can build a RS422 protocol converter. You had luck I wasn't in their team :)

I actually tried to convince them that this stuff was very simple and that they could do it. No interest whatsoever. I think what was going on behind the scenes is that they were in talks to be acquired (or planning to be in talks) and they really wanted their product to work. They probably also had a number of challenges of their own to deal with. In that context, it may have made sense to pay whatever was necessary to get going.

Re: Nobody’s going to steal your idea

#112

Post by reefoctopus » Mon, Nov 05, 2012, 1:41 PM UTC

robomartin wrote: post #53

This is pure nonsense. Please, please, please stop talking about ideas. What people steal --and the only thing with huge value-- are MARKET OPPORTUNITIES. Ideas are easy to generate. Everyone has loads of them. When an idea is combined with the work necessary to identify if a market opportunity exists it can become invaluable. Ideas are not stolen because an idea, all by itself, does not identify whether or not anyon…

The guy on shark tank with the smiley face sponge had one patent and two others pending. The idea wasn't the smiley face, it was a material which changed properties depending on temperature.

Re: Nobody’s going to steal your idea

#113

Post by zaidf » Mon, Nov 05, 2012, 10:15 PM UTC

robomartin wrote: post #88

zaidf wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you refer to as market opportunity is also commonly considered to be an idea. For example, lets say you find a group of folks willing to pay $1,000 for widgets that cost pennies because you discovered that (a) they don't know about these widgets and (b) it solves a major painpoint. Both are considered ideas.

> What you refer to as market opportunity is also commonly considered to be an idea. Nope. Wrong. The idea in your example is: "I want to make a widget that does x". The opportunity is: "I made some widgets that do x and 100 people bought them at $1,000 each during the last 30 days". An idea without an opportunity is: "I made some widgets that do x and I only found one person during the last 30 days who said they'd b…

We're probably just fighting over semantics. What you call opportunity sounds more like a proven idea versus your typical idea that needs proving.

Take the many instances when we say something like: "I have an idea: we could try selling blah to blah people." Is that an idea or a possible opportunity? I'd argue it is both.

Or "I have an idea: let's sell to blah people because I know they'd love this". Is that an idea or an opportunity? I'd argue it is both.

No where in the definition of an idea does it specfically exclude anything related to market opportunity.

Re: Nobody’s going to steal your idea

#114

Post by davidkatz » Wed, Nov 07, 2012, 12:05 AM UTC

grayc wrote: post #57

davidkatz wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps it's interesting to think about what the actual 'idea' here was. Did Xerox ever have the understanding that using mouse-windows computing would usher in a new era of computing? If not, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the real idea here was Jobs', and that it was built in part with building blocks created at Xerox, which is true for most progress - it's always built on previous progress by 3rd pa…

From what I can remember of the Steve Jobs biography (and assuming it's accurate) yes, many people at Xerox understood that they had developed something revolutionary.

I wish we could get the story from Xerox's side. If they understood they had something revolutionary on their hands, why did they not try to market it themselves? What resource were they missing?