5 ms·

Honestly, we are so busy, there are so many companies, and ideas are worth so little, that most of us don't think twice about a specific company once we move on

by sama 11y ago

Honestly, we are so busy, there are so many companies, and ideas are worth so little, that most of us don't think twice about a specific company once we move on to the next applications. The very best ideas usually don't seem worth stealing.

miracle_code 11y ago
The concept of ideas being worth near to nothing is new to me, can you explain that thinking? Without monetary arguments this seems not right.
- shizcakes 11y ago
  This might help: https://crew.co/how-to-build-an-online-business/idea-vs-execution/ https://crew.co/how-to-build-an-online-business/idea-vs-exec... The concept to further research is execution vs ideas: https://www.google.com/search?q=execution+not+ideas https://www.google.com/search?q=execution+not+ideas
- eric_h 11y ago
  Ideas are cheap, it's the execution and the team that matter.
- cbhl 11y ago
  If an idea is a good business opportunity, it's common for multiple people to be working on it independently at the same time. It's also common for many people to fail working on that very idea before you get to it. One of the values of VCs and networks and experts is that they can tell you how other companies in your space have failed (running out of money, founder breakups, "people won't pay for it", "it really needs X but X doesn't scale", etc.). If you watch the start-up space for long enough you start seeing multiple teams with the "same idea" but only a handful succeed at it; even at small a scale as university incubators.
- semerda 11y ago
  Execution > Ideas. Most startups end up being famous for something else than the original idea. Read Founders at Work to get a glimpse of this.
  - aries1980 11y ago
    > Most startups Can you provide the numbers pls?
- harrychenca 11y ago
  If ideas worth something, then an idea would be a commodity being traded among people in markets. Since there isn't a market where people trade ideas with something else, like money, there simply isn't a market for ideas. Hence, ideas are worth nothing.
  - eldavido 11y ago
    I don't buy this; I think starting off in the right market is a huge determinant of success. The reason there's no market is because it takes an idea and a person who can execute -- knowledge, skills, connections, experience, etc. Ideas aren't separable from people in a way that would make a market possible.
    - Mandatum 11y ago
      Inventions are worth money, ideas are not.
  - dvainsencher 11y ago
    Eh... no. Most markets are for items there are many of. There are lots of apples, people see friends enjoying them, people buy one, like it, buy another, a price is established. Key facts: you get to buy it more than once, more than one person gets to buy it, you can tell in advance it is worth something. Take too many of those away, and the market goes away. An idea (for a venture) is: unique (a close variant missing a key part has completely different value), you would not pay for it twice, and selling it to multiple people diminishes its value. Why would you think the value of an idea would be well captured in a market? You do realize a market is just one mechanism for expressing value, right? or is air value-less?
- msutherl 11y ago
  There are a number of ways to think about this, but one of them comes from "design thinking", which advocates processes like brainstorming in order to generate and sort ideas before starting a project. This is in contrast to what I sometimes think of as the "natural" or "naive" approach to starting a project, where you might spend time searching for "an idea", and when you've found "the idea", you begin executing. Turns out, methods of ideating reveal that a single person or a group of people can easily come up with thousands of good ideas in a matter of hours. After participating in these sorts of activities, I find it impossible to assign much value to an idea. The actual value, or lack thereof, only reveals itself much later and involves many more factors than the initial concept. Here's another one: what is an idea? Typically it is a sentence expressing a business proposition, or the essential functioning of a technology. But is it the same "idea" no matter who utters it? I think it's pretty clear that an idea is actually short-hand for a 'space of experience' held by the person saying it. In this sense, it's actually not possible to "steal" an idea, because ideas are linked to the people who have them, and because were someone to try, they would find that they can steal the sentence that refers to the actual idea, but lack the perspective to unlock the true meaning. Either way, this is a meme in the startup industry, and very true in my experience. Do not fixate on ideas: nobody can steal them and/or they are not important in the first place.
- tim333 11y ago
  There's a recent rant about it here https://www.reddit.com/r/startups/comments/4akqt9/you_are_probably_not_a_unique_snowflake_ideas_are/ https://www.reddit.com/r/startups/comments/4akqt9/you_are_pr... Obviously it depends a bit on the details but if you think of the big hits, saying say Alta Vista is crap let's build a better search engine or Myspace is crap let's build a better one of those wasn't worth much for the basic ideas because hundreds of people no doubt thought that. Now the detailed algorithms may have been worth something. But it's mostly in the actually building the better thing that counts. I guess knowing which ideas are good would be valuable. If someone had said you'd make a fortune doing myspace with real names and no flashing nonsense that would have been useful but just having a list of a 1000 ideas with no testing is probably not worth much.
metabren 11y ago
Does anyone other than those evaluating applications (i.e. YC staff) have access to these applications, the ideas they contain or any prototypes which may have been submitted?
graycat 11y ago
Sam, this conception of an "idea" is in astoundingly strong conflict with the conceptions of ideas elsewhere in business and national security that are commonly strongly and seriously protected as classified national security secrets (e.g., how stealth works, how the engines on the SR-71 worked, the details of the Navy's version of GPS), intellectual property, trade secrets, patents, how academic honors are awarded, e.g., the Abel prize, the Nobel science prizes, the Fields Medal, the Clay Math prizes, and more. "The very best ideas usually don't seem worth stealing." is an astounding statement.
- dboreham 11y ago
  You are actually citing examples of execution excellence and IP, rather than "ideas" as the word is used in early stage VC circles. For example the idea of making a low radar cross section aircraft is not new or valuable since right after radar was first developed. However executing on that idea to create the stealth fighter design produces something very valuable.
  - graycat 11y ago
    But how to create stealth took some darned good "ideas". Sure, the startup "circles" regard an idea as a short description of a sentence or two to a family member, neighbor, or prospective user/customer of how the new product/service will look to them. But, then what about how to make that product/service work? Ignore that? That part should be crucial: Crucial for having the first good or a much better product/solution, a technological advantage and barrier to entry, etc. That "idea" could take original research, be regarded as valuable intellectual property and protected as a trade secret, etc. Sure, the user/customer need not be aware of that "idea" maybe in the internals of the product/service. Then to say "The very best ideas usually don't seem worth stealing." ignores the crucial, core ideas, say, the details of the coating (likely highly classified and from a lot of R&D) and shape (again from a lot of R&D, and Maxwell's equations computations, likely challenging and classified) that were key to stealth. Or, here's an "idea": A safe, effective, cheap one pill taken once to cure any cancer. Sure that "idea" is just pie in the sky and worthless. But to create such a pill will take one heck of a good idea. To me it is just such good ideas that should be central in information technology startups. It sounds like Sam is neglecting that any such ideas are possible, relevant, valuable, or important. Or, to me, an idea for an algorithm that shows that P = NP is astounding, and astoundingly valuable -- implement it on a server and behind a lot of security and just sell the results, say, anyone who wants to send in any integer linear programming problem, that is, any of the thousands of important real world examples of NP-complete problems.
TheSixCents 11y ago
I totally get your meaning, but it could discourage potential applicants/newbies to startups. Could be misread as you not being open to their ideas (though of course I know you just mean execution is almost everything!)
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
blazespin 11y ago
"ideas are worth so little" .. that's a very broad and dangerous statement for you to make given that people might want to tell you things in confidence. Obviously, if you have IP, dont apply at YC because they don't think it's worth anything.
- philip1209 11y ago
  An idea is "self-driving cars." IP is how to make it happen. I'd venture to say that it's tough to communicate all of IP during a short application process.
- optforfon 11y ago
  Have you seen all the companies that have insane valuations? None are based on really novel ideas. If you have some truly novel technology you DEFINITELY shouldn't go to YC. They're not in the "technology transfer"-y business like universities.

by sama 11y ago

miracle_code 11y ago

The concept of ideas being worth near to nothing is new to me, can you explain that thinking? Without monetary arguments this seems not right.

shizcakes 11y ago
This might help: https://crew.co/how-to-build-an-online-business/idea-vs-execution/ https://crew.co/how-to-build-an-online-business/idea-vs-exec... The concept to further research is execution vs ideas: https://www.google.com/search?q=execution+not+ideas https://www.google.com/search?q=execution+not+ideas
eric_h 11y ago
Ideas are cheap, it's the execution and the team that matter.
cbhl 11y ago
If an idea is a good business opportunity, it's common for multiple people to be working on it independently at the same time. It's also common for many people to fail working on that very idea before you get to it. One of the values of VCs and networks and experts is that they can tell you how other companies in your space have failed (running out of money, founder breakups, "people won't pay for it", "it really needs X but X doesn't scale", etc.). If you watch the start-up space for long enough you start seeing multiple teams with the "same idea" but only a handful succeed at it; even at small a scale as university incubators.
semerda 11y ago
Execution > Ideas. Most startups end up being famous for something else than the original idea. Read Founders at Work to get a glimpse of this.
- aries1980 11y ago
  > Most startups Can you provide the numbers pls?
harrychenca 11y ago
If ideas worth something, then an idea would be a commodity being traded among people in markets. Since there isn't a market where people trade ideas with something else, like money, there simply isn't a market for ideas. Hence, ideas are worth nothing.
- eldavido 11y ago
  I don't buy this; I think starting off in the right market is a huge determinant of success. The reason there's no market is because it takes an idea and a person who can execute -- knowledge, skills, connections, experience, etc. Ideas aren't separable from people in a way that would make a market possible.
  - Mandatum 11y ago
    Inventions are worth money, ideas are not.
- dvainsencher 11y ago
  Eh... no. Most markets are for items there are many of. There are lots of apples, people see friends enjoying them, people buy one, like it, buy another, a price is established. Key facts: you get to buy it more than once, more than one person gets to buy it, you can tell in advance it is worth something. Take too many of those away, and the market goes away. An idea (for a venture) is: unique (a close variant missing a key part has completely different value), you would not pay for it twice, and selling it to multiple people diminishes its value. Why would you think the value of an idea would be well captured in a market? You do realize a market is just one mechanism for expressing value, right? or is air value-less?
msutherl 11y ago
There are a number of ways to think about this, but one of them comes from "design thinking", which advocates processes like brainstorming in order to generate and sort ideas before starting a project. This is in contrast to what I sometimes think of as the "natural" or "naive" approach to starting a project, where you might spend time searching for "an idea", and when you've found "the idea", you begin executing. Turns out, methods of ideating reveal that a single person or a group of people can easily come up with thousands of good ideas in a matter of hours. After participating in these sorts of activities, I find it impossible to assign much value to an idea. The actual value, or lack thereof, only reveals itself much later and involves many more factors than the initial concept. Here's another one: what is an idea? Typically it is a sentence expressing a business proposition, or the essential functioning of a technology. But is it the same "idea" no matter who utters it? I think it's pretty clear that an idea is actually short-hand for a 'space of experience' held by the person saying it. In this sense, it's actually not possible to "steal" an idea, because ideas are linked to the people who have them, and because were someone to try, they would find that they can steal the sentence that refers to the actual idea, but lack the perspective to unlock the true meaning. Either way, this is a meme in the startup industry, and very true in my experience. Do not fixate on ideas: nobody can steal them and/or they are not important in the first place.
tim333 11y ago
There's a recent rant about it here https://www.reddit.com/r/startups/comments/4akqt9/you_are_probably_not_a_unique_snowflake_ideas_are/ https://www.reddit.com/r/startups/comments/4akqt9/you_are_pr... Obviously it depends a bit on the details but if you think of the big hits, saying say Alta Vista is crap let's build a better search engine or Myspace is crap let's build a better one of those wasn't worth much for the basic ideas because hundreds of people no doubt thought that. Now the detailed algorithms may have been worth something. But it's mostly in the actually building the better thing that counts. I guess knowing which ideas are good would be valuable. If someone had said you'd make a fortune doing myspace with real names and no flashing nonsense that would have been useful but just having a list of a 1000 ideas with no testing is probably not worth much.

metabren 11y ago

Does anyone other than those evaluating applications (i.e. YC staff) have access to these applications, the ideas they contain or any prototypes which may have been submitted?

graycat 11y ago

Sam, this conception of an "idea" is in astoundingly strong conflict with the conceptions of ideas elsewhere in business and national security that are commonly strongly and seriously protected as classified national security secrets (e.g., how stealth works, how the engines on the SR-71 worked, the details of the Navy's version of GPS), intellectual property, trade secrets, patents, how academic honors are awarded, e.g., the Abel prize, the Nobel science prizes, the Fields Medal, the Clay Math prizes, and more. "The very best ideas usually don't seem worth stealing." is an astounding statement.

dboreham 11y ago
You are actually citing examples of execution excellence and IP, rather than "ideas" as the word is used in early stage VC circles. For example the idea of making a low radar cross section aircraft is not new or valuable since right after radar was first developed. However executing on that idea to create the stealth fighter design produces something very valuable.
- graycat 11y ago
  But how to create stealth took some darned good "ideas". Sure, the startup "circles" regard an idea as a short description of a sentence or two to a family member, neighbor, or prospective user/customer of how the new product/service will look to them. But, then what about how to make that product/service work? Ignore that? That part should be crucial: Crucial for having the first good or a much better product/solution, a technological advantage and barrier to entry, etc. That "idea" could take original research, be regarded as valuable intellectual property and protected as a trade secret, etc. Sure, the user/customer need not be aware of that "idea" maybe in the internals of the product/service. Then to say "The very best ideas usually don't seem worth stealing." ignores the crucial, core ideas, say, the details of the coating (likely highly classified and from a lot of R&D) and shape (again from a lot of R&D, and Maxwell's equations computations, likely challenging and classified) that were key to stealth. Or, here's an "idea": A safe, effective, cheap one pill taken once to cure any cancer. Sure that "idea" is just pie in the sky and worthless. But to create such a pill will take one heck of a good idea. To me it is just such good ideas that should be central in information technology startups. It sounds like Sam is neglecting that any such ideas are possible, relevant, valuable, or important. Or, to me, an idea for an algorithm that shows that P = NP is astounding, and astoundingly valuable -- implement it on a server and behind a lot of security and just sell the results, say, anyone who wants to send in any integer linear programming problem, that is, any of the thousands of important real world examples of NP-complete problems.

TheSixCents 11y ago

I totally get your meaning, but it could discourage potential applicants/newbies to startups. Could be misread as you not being open to their ideas (though of course I know you just mean execution is almost everything!)

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

blazespin 11y ago

"ideas are worth so little" .. that's a very broad and dangerous statement for you to make given that people might want to tell you things in confidence. Obviously, if you have IP, dont apply at YC because they don't think it's worth anything.

philip1209 11y ago
An idea is "self-driving cars." IP is how to make it happen. I'd venture to say that it's tough to communicate all of IP during a short application process.
optforfon 11y ago
Have you seen all the companies that have insane valuations? None are based on really novel ideas. If you have some truly novel technology you DEFINITELY shouldn't go to YC. They're not in the "technology transfer"-y business like universities.