5 ms·

Ideas Are a Commodity, It's Execution Intelligence That Matters

32 points by klous 16y ago

Retric 16y ago
You often hear this but it's completely wrong. Intelligence and Execution was not going to save Pet's.com or all those other .COM's based on stupid idea. If anything assuming Execution is what's important is a great way to separate a sucker err Investor from his money. PS: A good idea is a necessary but not sufficient requirement for success. Shipping CO2 to Mars is not going to make you money end of story.
- rmah 16y ago
  A minor clarification: there was nothing stupid, per se, about selling pet related products online. It was their execution that was horribly flawed. Others have executed on the "sell pet stuff online" idea and succeed to one degree or another.
  - Retric 16y ago
    Why limit yourself to selling "pet stuff" online? Edit: There are advantages and disadvantages to selling Pet stuff online. (Bad: tends to be low value per weight and vary fragmented dogs, cats, fish, birds. aka Dry fish food is reasonable to FedEx 50lb bags of dog food less so. Good: Large market and ???) Clearly you can make money selling pet stuff online but there is little reason to do that over selling kitchen supply's online.
    - MicahWedemeyer 16y ago
      Be excellent at 1 thing. Trying to be all things to all people is a great recipe for failure. If you love pets and have great connections in that community, it's a crap-ton easier to build a "pet stuff" store than a "everything under the sun" store.
      - michael_dorfman 16y ago
        But that doesn't mean that there's a market for the "pet stuff" store, necessarily. In other words: Be excellent and one thing, but make sure that one thing is worth being excellent at. Trying to be all things to all people is a great recipe for failure, but it's not the only recipe for failure. There are lots and lots of ways to fail.
        Gormo 16y ago
        I think most of the big successes that came out of the dotcom era were the ones that applied internet technologies to enhance markets that already existed. Amazon worked; bookstores are a very viable market. Ebay worked; flea markets are common in every town. PayPal worked; everyone has a checking account. There are also plenty of pet stores. Pets.com could have easily been a success if they had built their company properly. What you're saying seems to validate the article's point: execute a proven "commodity" idea well, and you can succeed. Bet the company on an experimental vision, and you risk failure.
      - Retric 16y ago
        If you love pets and have great connections in that community Building a pet community and then up selling stuff is an ok idea, but it's also a different idea than just creating a pet store online. Limiting yourself to just selling generic pet stuff without said community is a poor idea. PS: If you go to pets.com now you see the second version, but they initial push was all about selling stuff and not building a community. The issue is one of trust, if you sell yourself as a store it's much harder to build a community than it is to have a community and then sell stuff (the good) stuff
    - Gormo 16y ago
      Why limit yourself to shelling shoes online?
      - Retric 16y ago
        There is actually a lot to be said for selling shoes online. Having a huge selection is extremely valuable. It's a reasonably uniform product line with a high value to shipping cost. You can independently measure them so people can have a good idea if it will fit them etc. Unlike computer parts or toy's your inventory does not lose value quickly. And unlike jewelry it’s easy to figure out what it looks like from a picture. You are likely to be able to resell "returned" items without people noticing.
- danhak 16y ago
  Yes, all things being equal, the idea itself could impose an upper limit on success.
- Gormo 16y ago
  I agree that a good idea is necessary but not sufficient for success. But I think the article makes an important point in calling ideas a "commodity": what is more fungible than the same idea in two people's minds? You can get good ideas for free. Excellence at execution is much more expensive.
- dhimes 16y ago
  I think the comment by MS on the original site is worth a read. Basically: you need both a great idea and great execution. Being tall won't guarantee that you'll be a great basketball player, but it's very, very difficult to be a great basketball player if you are not tall.
- theBobMcCormick 16y ago
  I'd love to read a good, impartial post-mortem of Pets.com. It's brought up in so many conversations about the .com era, but never with any concrete details. I would assume that the big problem with pets.com was their execution. Just the amount they spent on advertising alone must have been almost impossible to recoup.
Tycho 16y ago
And what is execution but a series of related, more specific ideas? (plus capital)
- bena 16y ago
  Work. The difference is work or effort. It doesn't matter if you have 50 excellent ideas each day, you are going to be outclassed by the guy who has one mediocre idea that he executes relentlessly. Because that is the one quality that separates the successful from the unsuccessful: tenacity or perseverance. No matter what, you keep trying. Failure isn't a showstopper, just an indication that you need to modify your strategy. Keep plugging away at it and you to can find yourself with an overnight success after 10 years.
  - Tycho 16y ago
    Work is just another form of capital, even if it's your own. I mean consider one person has an idea for a product, and they sketch out their requirements then employ engineers to build accordingly. Let's say another person has an idea then with their own skills builds a more successful product. Was the second person more successful because they worked harder than the first - no, because they didn't necessarily work any harder than the engineers that were commissioned. The difference, however, could be that along the way the solo worker came up with many additional ideas which he could then add to the project. I agree with the notion that one great idea ALONE does not guarantee success. But that's different from saying ideas are worthless.
- Gormo 16y ago
  Sure, but there's a distinction between the ideas that set the goal itself and the ideas that inform the strategy that gets you to the goal. The article is saying that a creative strategy toward any goal is superior to to a mediocre strategy toward a creative goal.
moultano 16y ago
There's a much better way to say this that isn't controversial or link-bait. It's also very old. "The devil is in the details."
- Gormo 16y ago
  That's really the contrapositive, though. That proverb says that "not understanding the details will lead to failure", but the article is saying "master the details if you want to win". Different set of connotations. We want to find success, not Satan, in the specifics.
dustingram 16y ago
A similar post by Scott Adams 2 weeks prior: http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/the_value_of_ideas/ http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/the_value_of_ideas/
skbohra 16y ago
As they say, scratching your own itch is the key to creating great products.
arman0 16y ago
Zuckerberg stole the idea for Facebook. So, you do need to worry about who you disclose your ideas to.
Gormo 16y ago
Concisely: you are more likely to succeed if you try to build a mousetrap better than if you try to build a better mousetrap.
jackfoxy 16y ago
The title of this says it all when it comes to most (maybe even all) of the software patents I've run across (caveat: I've never dealt with serious software patents dealing with non-trivial algorithms like compression, encryption, etc.). So many software and business process patents would have been thought of by so many different people, it only faced with the situation. So in that sense I think, yes, many, many ideas are really commodities. Where ideas are not commodities are, for instance, breakthroughs in logic like Haskell Curry or Kurt Goedel made.
contextfree 16y ago
I find that the hard thing, at least for me, is coming up with a good idea that's also practically implementable under the particular constraints and context you happen to be in. I can come up with plenty of ideas that might be good in some context other than mine, and plenty of boring ideas that work in my context, but the combination of both is elusive. That's why I'm still working for other people and haven't tried to go into business for myself.
astartup1 16y ago
This is completely wrong for some obvious reasons 1. If ideas meant nothing there would be no patent and trade secrets. 2. Big companies are very good at execution but start-up still can compete against them. Most of the times because big companies don't have or don't value ideas that start-ups adopt. 3. Most people making this argument haven't had any great ideas themselves. "Ad hominem" attack but people need to reflect and make up articles. 4. Author is referring to iterating on initial idea as execution. I think, that is also part of creating idea not exactly execution. Seed however small holds everything to generate a large tree. What is important? Soil and water or seed...
Tichy 16y ago
"through a management team with superior execution intelligence" Isn't that just a more fancy way of saying "a management team with ideas"?

32 points by klous 16y ago

You often hear this but it's completely wrong. Intelligence and Execution was not going to save Pet's.com or all those other .COM's based on stupid idea. If anything assuming Execution is what's important is a great way to separate a sucker err Investor from his money. PS: A good idea is a necessary but not sufficient requirement for success. Shipping CO2 to Mars is not going to make you money end of story.

rmah 16y ago
A minor clarification: there was nothing stupid, per se, about selling pet related products online. It was their execution that was horribly flawed. Others have executed on the "sell pet stuff online" idea and succeed to one degree or another.
- Retric 16y ago
  Why limit yourself to selling "pet stuff" online? Edit: There are advantages and disadvantages to selling Pet stuff online. (Bad: tends to be low value per weight and vary fragmented dogs, cats, fish, birds. aka Dry fish food is reasonable to FedEx 50lb bags of dog food less so. Good: Large market and ???) Clearly you can make money selling pet stuff online but there is little reason to do that over selling kitchen supply's online.
  - MicahWedemeyer 16y ago
    Be excellent at 1 thing. Trying to be all things to all people is a great recipe for failure. If you love pets and have great connections in that community, it's a crap-ton easier to build a "pet stuff" store than a "everything under the sun" store.
    - michael_dorfman 16y ago
      But that doesn't mean that there's a market for the "pet stuff" store, necessarily. In other words: Be excellent and one thing, but make sure that one thing is worth being excellent at. Trying to be all things to all people is a great recipe for failure, but it's not the only recipe for failure. There are lots and lots of ways to fail.
      - Gormo 16y ago
        I think most of the big successes that came out of the dotcom era were the ones that applied internet technologies to enhance markets that already existed. Amazon worked; bookstores are a very viable market. Ebay worked; flea markets are common in every town. PayPal worked; everyone has a checking account. There are also plenty of pet stores. Pets.com could have easily been a success if they had built their company properly. What you're saying seems to validate the article's point: execute a proven "commodity" idea well, and you can succeed. Bet the company on an experimental vision, and you risk failure.
    - Retric 16y ago
      If you love pets and have great connections in that community Building a pet community and then up selling stuff is an ok idea, but it's also a different idea than just creating a pet store online. Limiting yourself to just selling generic pet stuff without said community is a poor idea. PS: If you go to pets.com now you see the second version, but they initial push was all about selling stuff and not building a community. The issue is one of trust, if you sell yourself as a store it's much harder to build a community than it is to have a community and then sell stuff (the good) stuff
  - Gormo 16y ago
    Why limit yourself to shelling shoes online?
    - Retric 16y ago
      There is actually a lot to be said for selling shoes online. Having a huge selection is extremely valuable. It's a reasonably uniform product line with a high value to shipping cost. You can independently measure them so people can have a good idea if it will fit them etc. Unlike computer parts or toy's your inventory does not lose value quickly. And unlike jewelry it’s easy to figure out what it looks like from a picture. You are likely to be able to resell "returned" items without people noticing.
danhak 16y ago
Yes, all things being equal, the idea itself could impose an upper limit on success.
Gormo 16y ago
I agree that a good idea is necessary but not sufficient for success. But I think the article makes an important point in calling ideas a "commodity": what is more fungible than the same idea in two people's minds? You can get good ideas for free. Excellence at execution is much more expensive.
dhimes 16y ago
I think the comment by MS on the original site is worth a read. Basically: you need both a great idea and great execution. Being tall won't guarantee that you'll be a great basketball player, but it's very, very difficult to be a great basketball player if you are not tall.
theBobMcCormick 16y ago
I'd love to read a good, impartial post-mortem of Pets.com. It's brought up in so many conversations about the .com era, but never with any concrete details. I would assume that the big problem with pets.com was their execution. Just the amount they spent on advertising alone must have been almost impossible to recoup.

Tycho 16y ago

And what is execution but a series of related, more specific ideas? (plus capital)

bena 16y ago
Work. The difference is work or effort. It doesn't matter if you have 50 excellent ideas each day, you are going to be outclassed by the guy who has one mediocre idea that he executes relentlessly. Because that is the one quality that separates the successful from the unsuccessful: tenacity or perseverance. No matter what, you keep trying. Failure isn't a showstopper, just an indication that you need to modify your strategy. Keep plugging away at it and you to can find yourself with an overnight success after 10 years.
- Tycho 16y ago
  Work is just another form of capital, even if it's your own. I mean consider one person has an idea for a product, and they sketch out their requirements then employ engineers to build accordingly. Let's say another person has an idea then with their own skills builds a more successful product. Was the second person more successful because they worked harder than the first - no, because they didn't necessarily work any harder than the engineers that were commissioned. The difference, however, could be that along the way the solo worker came up with many additional ideas which he could then add to the project. I agree with the notion that one great idea ALONE does not guarantee success. But that's different from saying ideas are worthless.
Gormo 16y ago
Sure, but there's a distinction between the ideas that set the goal itself and the ideas that inform the strategy that gets you to the goal. The article is saying that a creative strategy toward any goal is superior to to a mediocre strategy toward a creative goal.

moultano 16y ago

There's a much better way to say this that isn't controversial or link-bait. It's also very old. "The devil is in the details."

Gormo 16y ago
That's really the contrapositive, though. That proverb says that "not understanding the details will lead to failure", but the article is saying "master the details if you want to win". Different set of connotations. We want to find success, not Satan, in the specifics.

dustingram 16y ago

A similar post by Scott Adams 2 weeks prior: http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/the_value_of_ideas/ http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/the_value_of_ideas/

skbohra 16y ago

As they say, scratching your own itch is the key to creating great products.

arman0 16y ago

Zuckerberg stole the idea for Facebook. So, you do need to worry about who you disclose your ideas to.

Gormo 16y ago

Concisely: you are more likely to succeed if you try to build a mousetrap better than if you try to build a better mousetrap.

jackfoxy 16y ago

The title of this says it all when it comes to most (maybe even all) of the software patents I've run across (caveat: I've never dealt with serious software patents dealing with non-trivial algorithms like compression, encryption, etc.). So many software and business process patents would have been thought of by so many different people, it only faced with the situation. So in that sense I think, yes, many, many ideas are really commodities. Where ideas are not commodities are, for instance, breakthroughs in logic like Haskell Curry or Kurt Goedel made.

contextfree 16y ago

I find that the hard thing, at least for me, is coming up with a good idea that's also practically implementable under the particular constraints and context you happen to be in. I can come up with plenty of ideas that might be good in some context other than mine, and plenty of boring ideas that work in my context, but the combination of both is elusive. That's why I'm still working for other people and haven't tried to go into business for myself.

astartup1 16y ago

This is completely wrong for some obvious reasons 1. If ideas meant nothing there would be no patent and trade secrets. 2. Big companies are very good at execution but start-up still can compete against them. Most of the times because big companies don't have or don't value ideas that start-ups adopt. 3. Most people making this argument haven't had any great ideas themselves. "Ad hominem" attack but people need to reflect and make up articles. 4. Author is referring to iterating on initial idea as execution. I think, that is also part of creating idea not exactly execution. Seed however small holds everything to generate a large tree. What is important? Soil and water or seed...

Tichy 16y ago

"through a management team with superior execution intelligence" Isn't that just a more fancy way of saying "a management team with ideas"?