3 ms·

I'd phrase the same idea this way: what is the bottleneck? Are ideas the bottleneck? No. Everyone and their uncle has great ideas. There are blog posts out the

by djhn 11y ago

I'd phrase the same idea this way: what is the bottleneck? Are ideas the bottleneck? No. Everyone and their uncle has great ideas. There are blog posts out there giving away almost every possible business idea for free, at least in the broad sense of a business idea. Is money the bottleneck? No. A lot of money is invested badly, both in terms of returns and social value. If you have a great idea and a team that can execute, you will get funding. (Either VC, or, you know, profit.) Are people the bottleneck? No. There is talent, and it can't be said it is allocated efficiently. With a decent combination of idea+money you will probably attract the right talent. So what is the bottleneck? Attention. Inspiring others and catchy enthusiasm. Charisma. Impact. (All in a broad sense) You are essentially on a campaign. *Now there is a necessary, but not sufficient step prerequisite. And that is the founder having either domain knowledge to attract any of the above, or some of the above to attract domain knowledge.

mooreds 11y ago
This reminded me of the idea of the attention economy. http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2011/07/paying-attention-to-the-attention-economy.html http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2011/07/paying-atten...
johan_larson 11y ago
I'm not sure it's that simple. If you look at what aspiring entrepreneurs are complaining about it is the difficult of finding a worthwhile idea to pursue (on the one hand) and the difficulty of raising capital to make it happen with (on the other). These complaints are too numerous to just dismiss. I suspect those who are inclined to dismiss them are people who have already cleared those hurdles. On the topic of ideas, there is a similar phenomenon among aspiring writers. Some beginners complain bitterly about how difficult it is to find with good story ideas. And then professionals come along and tell them that ideas are the easy part; execution is what matters. I suspect the sad fact is that both sides are right on this one. Some people really do struggle to come up with novel, actionable ideas. Others don't. But the pros are right that a good idea doesn't even begin to guarantee success, and awful lot of hard work must follow to make it happen.
- djhn 11y ago
  > aspiring entrepreneurs [...] finding a worthwile idea to pursue Something about that phrase creates a knee-jerk reaction along the lines of "this is what's wrong with SV culture today, people deciding to 'follow a path of entrepreneurship' without an idea, team, experience or the means". I'm not sure it's a valid way of thinking, but I would still struggle to call a person without these things and entrepreneur or even aspiring entrepreneur, no matter how resourceful and smart they are.

by djhn 11y ago

mooreds 11y ago

This reminded me of the idea of the attention economy. http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2011/07/paying-attention-to-the-attention-economy.html http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2011/07/paying-atten...

johan_larson 11y ago

I'm not sure it's that simple. If you look at what aspiring entrepreneurs are complaining about it is the difficult of finding a worthwhile idea to pursue (on the one hand) and the difficulty of raising capital to make it happen with (on the other). These complaints are too numerous to just dismiss. I suspect those who are inclined to dismiss them are people who have already cleared those hurdles. On the topic of ideas, there is a similar phenomenon among aspiring writers. Some beginners complain bitterly about how difficult it is to find with good story ideas. And then professionals come along and tell them that ideas are the easy part; execution is what matters. I suspect the sad fact is that both sides are right on this one. Some people really do struggle to come up with novel, actionable ideas. Others don't. But the pros are right that a good idea doesn't even begin to guarantee success, and awful lot of hard work must follow to make it happen.

djhn 11y ago
> aspiring entrepreneurs [...] finding a worthwile idea to pursue Something about that phrase creates a knee-jerk reaction along the lines of "this is what's wrong with SV culture today, people deciding to 'follow a path of entrepreneurship' without an idea, team, experience or the means". I'm not sure it's a valid way of thinking, but I would still struggle to call a person without these things and entrepreneur or even aspiring entrepreneur, no matter how resourceful and smart they are.