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Ask HN: How to “soft” launch a public ledger idea?
I've been working on a public ledger idea. Its very unique. In a not so complete nutshell it helps charities gain public momentum though a special mining process.
I am struggling on how to do a "soft launch". If I launch to soon and I'm not done my idea will probably be copied. If I wait to launch, what if I never feel it is finished enough to launch. A catch-22. Part of me feel I should start talking about it as it is really very different.
Any advice?
- DoreenMichele 9y agoI don't think you should worry about your idea being copied. First, there may be other people who have had the same idea independently. Second, the reason people say things like "ideas don't matter, execution is everything" is because any idea you think you have will have myriad assumptions baked in that will be unique to how your mind works. Other people who nominally have "the same idea" won't really have the exact same idea. (This is why there are, for example, so many Christian sects: because millions of people who call themselves Christian have different ideas about what it means to be Christian, as hopefully a relatable example.) Just start by putting up a web page or creating a github repo or similar and maybe tweet it or post it to HN or otherwise share it through whatever channels are comfortable and familiar for you. Unless you already have well developed channels where lots of people are very interested in everything you say, it can be surprisingly hard to get any traction. You are probably overestimating the attention your idea will receive.
- jason_slack 9y agoI'm not so concerned about the attention but rather I am in love with my idea and if someone with unlimited resources comes along, I don't want to feel like I gave away something I loved before I really take it for a creative spin. That being said I do want creative suggestions and creative help that a public GitHub repo might attract.
- DoreenMichele 9y agoI really love the presentation scenes in the movie The Hudsucker Proxy. One is a circle on a crumpled up piece of paper and he says "You know, for kids!" His idea is a hula hoop. Later, he has a circle on a larger display and says the same thing: "For kids!" It's a frisbee. Here's a clip of one of them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fn8rXglFMuQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fn8rXglFMuQ The odds are very high that your first attempt to explain your idea will sound equally silly and unintelligible to most other people. Things like elevator speeches tend to take a lot of time to develop. Conveying anything succinctly and well, especially anything new, is very challenging. Most people have no idea how bad they are at until they start that communication process in earnest.
- ecesena 9y agoYes, launch. Nobody has time to copy you, and if someone has, you still have a time advantage.
- deft 9y agoPeople will copy you, especially if you release it as open source. I promise you that. But they will most likely fail. Release it to a small audience without much fanfare and build up customers/users that way. In the public ledger world the only important part is attracting users. Copycats almost always fail to do that. Ubiq, Expanse and the other million ETH clones have never came close to duplicating ethereum's success even as some of them have added innovative new features.
- jason_slack 9y agoThanks for the reply. My goal isn't about being the next big thing in public ledger options. It's about trying to help people realize they can help others and help themselves without needing to understand all the technical background. I guess it stems from realizing that I spend $12 each day on coffee and I could just spend $6 and make someone else happy with the other $6.