Idea (Kevin Rose): $3 million
Connections (especially VCs) (Jay Adelson): $2 million
Implementation (me): 0
But hey, as far as Kevin and Jay were concerned, I should have been happy to have a job.
The concept I had for my web site hatched about two years ago. I delayed on taking it and using it for that time because I was CERTAIN that somebody at one of the huge sites in the field would have implemented something like that. From my point of view, the problem was immense and there was only a single solution. Since then, demoing my concept pages to various people in the field, I've come to realize that while people can INSTANTLY grasp why the idea works, nobody even attempted to make the same logical approach to the problem as I did.
I think you see this contrast best with Jobs and Wozniak, and with the people who say that Jobs would have been nothing at all without Woz, that he was just a marketer. Strictly speaking, that's true, because Jobs needed somebody else to implement his ideas. However, looking at Jobs' career, that's always been the case. He didn't build NeXT himself: he got people to build it for him. Ditto the iPod, or the iTunes music store, or the iPhone, all of which were things that he purportedly conceptualized himself. I think that his career demonstrates that while Woz was the essential to creating Jobs' concept, that the idealist who came up with the ideas to begin with is the one whose talent is rarest and most valuable.
Of course they are not, just it does not exist "I could get rich with the right idea". It's a matter of passion, ideas, ability to create things, ability to be flexible and change what you are doing while you are doing it and so on.
After all the ability to adapt to the users requires a process of idea creation. So just "an idea" is worthless. But a whole team without an idea will eventually create one, it can go without one (not one, a good team will have a lot of ideas, both bad and good, and evolving, and so on).
Edit: proof that ideas are not worthless, people that have a lot of good ideas are more likely to get hired and earn more money. Good ideas are also a form of advertising, people with interesting ideas created blogs with a lot of readers, and so on. It's hard or impossible to create a market for ideas, but are not worthless at all. Also some kind of works like 'interior designer' sell ideas: paint this wall red, put this here and so on.
If ideas were worthless, you wouldn't have the patent industry, intellectual property laws, royalty licensing, etc. These industries have their faults, to be sure, but there is also a legitimate use of IP laws to protect smaller startups from large corporations. And these laws exist because ideas are valuable.
The value of ideas becomes relevant to entrepreneurs when you have to decide whether to share an idea with a partner, potential investor or prospect client. My advisor tells me repeatedly "if you talk about one of your ideas with no NDA or similar mechanism in place, you have just given that person or corporation a gift. It's no longer solely yours."
Most of the large corporations I deal with understand when I request an NDA before getting into the details of any conversation. Most of the times I've heard or read about people refusing to sign NDAs is when entrepreneurs deal with VCs. They have their reasons for refusing to sign up front, which include the reasoning that they hear hundreds of ideas everyday and aren't going to take the time to sign an NDA for each one. A line of thinking that tends to derive from this is that there are no unique ideas anymore, but I don't think this is true and it shouldn't be taken for granted.
When dealing with VCs, it's even more important to understand that if you give too much away without signing that NDA, not only are you giving them a gift, you're giving it to someone who has both lots of money and strong connections to others with the technical ability and experience to act on it. And they don't think ideas are worthless.
- "inside information"
- info that can be worked out, but is not obvious (scanning the numbers got Warren Buffett started)
- knowing where the gold/oil is
- a new method that is cheaper/better than before
- an opportunity that's not obviousYour initial idea is going to change as you realise and learn more things about the area you are trying to realise something in. The plane engine needs a lot of tweaking from whatever concept you came up with till it can fly.
Same with a business idea, but for a business idea, the right way to do so is to place it in front of lots of people and just keep trying till you get it right.
http://journal.dedasys.com/articles/2007/04/26/ideas-are-wor...
1 - How do I know that you have a great idea if you don't tell me the idea first, in which case you can't sell it anymore.
2 - If you "sell" me the idea you still have it, and you can sell it to others (just like software).
That doesn't mean that ideas are worthless. It is possible to have an 'aha!' insight that is extremely valuable to you. There are lots of things that are extremely valuable to a person (meaning that you would pay a lot to keep them if you had to) but completely worthless others because they can't use them.
2. exclusivity clause
One role of patents is they conceptually wrap up an idea, so you have a "thing" to sell (know-how must be supplied too - you're hired).
The original idea if not taken on the failcoaster is worthless.
That being said, it's an EXCELLENT attack on the people who truly think ideas are worthless. And I think that's a mindset that matters a lot.
Most ideas suck. Those ideas are worthless. A few ideas are very valuable. Those ideas are the things that change the world. Just because all the ideas in your network are worthless, doesn't mean all ideas are worthless. The idea that ideas are worthless is worthless, it omits relevant extreme cases.
I think what people mean when they say ideas are worthless is that they don't have the vision or intelligence to sort through a pile of ideas and sort out the good few from the worthless many.
Edit: Added "business", which is what I meant in the first place. Sorry for not clarifying.
Consider: "Ideas are worthless without execution."
Assume it is true. It's an idea, so it refers to itself, and it is only worthwhile with execution. Since it is not executable, then if it is true, it is worthless.
Assume it is false. It is worthless, or only worthwhile inso far as it's falsehood is useful.
So, "Ideas are worthless without execution" is itself worthless or false and useful.
In no (possible) case, is "Ideas are worthless without execution" both true and worthwhile.
I don't need examples. I just need logic.
*The Fountainhead</> says it best regarding great ideas:
"Thousands of years ago, the first man discovered how to make fire. He was probably burned at the stake he had taught his brothers to light. He was considered an evildoer who had dealt with a demon mankind dreaded. But thereafter men had fire to keep them warm, to cook their food, to light their caves. He had left them a gift they had not conceived and he had lifted darkness off the earth."
"Lifting darkness from the earth" - that is what entrepreneurship is all about really I think.