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Ask HN: What is meant by "execution" of an idea

2 points by kschua 16y ago

Good morning fellow HNers, This is my first "Ask HN" so I hope I am doing it right :) I hear this term a lot of times, but what exactly do people mean by a good "execution" of an idea? Take for example, after reading some of the posts here, I want to create something similar to ChatRoulette for HN where we can do pair programming with each other and toss out ideas. The idea is 1) You log in and join a pool of "wanting to pair program" 2) Select programming language choice eg Java, Php 3) It randomly selects someone who also wants to pair with you based on the language you selected 4) Gives you the Skype id of that person. With this example, what would make a good execution of the idea and what would make a bad execution of the idea? Thanks

aristus 16y ago
"Good execution" is somewhat of a question-begging term, and the details differ depending on who you talk to. If you have an idea, execute it, and make lots of money, it's hard to argue that the execution was bad. In general, I think a good execution would be one that a) didn't take years to launch b) doesn't take enormous effort to maintain as-is, c) can be iterated on, d) actually solves a need, e) in an efficient and compelling manner. An investor would mention other things like a good hiring pipeline and management structure, IP, business relationships, etc. Here's the thing: the only people you really have to convince of your execution is your customers.
- kschua 16y ago
  So in you opinion, what did Facebook execute better than Friendster which in turn execute better than Sixapart or one of e many social networking ideas in the past Is it better marketing, things like "Status", "Like" etc?
  - aristus 16y ago
    Well, again, this is a question-begging term. There is no magic bullet -- there are only things that, in hindsight, worked very very well, and disasters that you avoided. Friendster in particular shot themselves repeatedly in the foot by: a) fetishizing immense graph calculations which made their site unbearably slow & expensive to run. b) ignoring a huge influx of overseas users until they became a big capex problem c) not working out ways to exclude or better monetize those overseas users d) not really innovating because they were preoccupied with a). Now things could have turned out differently. If those hugely expensive graph calculations had been hugely beneficial to the user experience, they would have won, hands-down. But that turned out not to be the case. It was a bad bet. Hard to say if it was "bad execution".

2 points by kschua 16y ago

aristus 16y ago

"Good execution" is somewhat of a question-begging term, and the details differ depending on who you talk to. If you have an idea, execute it, and make lots of money, it's hard to argue that the execution was bad. In general, I think a good execution would be one that a) didn't take years to launch b) doesn't take enormous effort to maintain as-is, c) can be iterated on, d) actually solves a need, e) in an efficient and compelling manner. An investor would mention other things like a good hiring pipeline and management structure, IP, business relationships, etc. Here's the thing: the only people you really have to convince of your execution is your customers.

kschua 16y ago
So in you opinion, what did Facebook execute better than Friendster which in turn execute better than Sixapart or one of e many social networking ideas in the past Is it better marketing, things like "Status", "Like" etc?
- aristus 16y ago
  Well, again, this is a question-begging term. There is no magic bullet -- there are only things that, in hindsight, worked very very well, and disasters that you avoided. Friendster in particular shot themselves repeatedly in the foot by: a) fetishizing immense graph calculations which made their site unbearably slow & expensive to run. b) ignoring a huge influx of overseas users until they became a big capex problem c) not working out ways to exclude or better monetize those overseas users d) not really innovating because they were preoccupied with a). Now things could have turned out differently. If those hugely expensive graph calculations had been hugely beneficial to the user experience, they would have won, hands-down. But that turned out not to be the case. It was a bad bet. Hard to say if it was "bad execution".