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Something I always mentor those that ask about an idea: “Any good idea you have, 100 other people have already had it. Any GREAT idea you have, 1000 people have

Something I always mentor those that ask about an idea: “Any good idea you have, 100 other people have already had it. Any GREAT idea you have, 1000 people have already had it. The difference is how well you execute it.” This is usually in the context of whether they should “share” their specific idea. What I always recommend is spread it broadly, and try to get help executing. Very few things these days can be done in isolation. What is most important is to “get going”, get a team and prove you can deliver. Edit: minor fix for grammar

matwood 8y ago
This is why I'm always working on making sure my default mode is execute. By executing over and over, people get better at...executing. I personally think people can see this within themselves. We have ideas that we should eat better and exercise, but knowing and doing are very different things.
JohnFen 8y ago
A million times this. I usually phrase it as "ideas are a dime a dozen. The thing that is of actual value is the hard work of execution."
nikanj 8y ago
I always use the pool table analogy. You’ll never win a game of pool by having better ideas, unless you have the execution to back them up. Meanwhile, the guy with a solid execution of a really basic strategy is nigh unbeatable.
marviel 8y ago
For sure. I think people can spend a lot of energy trying to protect their idea, and almost no energy in establishing if there is any prior work. I think this comes from two main places: 1) A desire to believe we are special in our insight into the problem. 2) (lesser) A lack of general awareness that knowing the prior work in a domain is insanely useful. 3) A lack of search knowhow when it comes to finding similar ideas to one's own. This of course is aided when you have a good general understanding of the domains your idea touches, because you have the power of a search vocabulary. If you can stand on someone else's failures and efforts, and reap the benefits of their (explicit or just effectively) research, why would you not spend the short amount of time digesting that, before reinventing the wheel? "If I have seen further it is by standing on the sholders [sic] of Giants." - Isaac Newton
nerpderp82 8y ago
If this is true, why do startups run in stealth mode and corporations have super secret labs? The "idea of" hotmail was amazing and easily communicated. The value immediate. There are clearly ideas that are not a dime a dozen. I have also solved seemingly intractable problems that groups had worked on for weeks with a single sentence. Every good idea has first thinker. I understand the stance that execution trumps the brilliance of the idea, but it overly devalues ideas themselves and encourages toil over elegance. Could you explain?
- aerophilic 8y ago
  I guess the simplest way to say it is the following: Yes, there truly are new ideas that no one has thought of. But for any new idea to truly be valuable, it has to be “worked”. This is true (IMHO) of anything, whether it is a way of viewing our would (physics), an insight into a new market (startup idea), or even a brand new way of doing something (pure invention). In every case, unless you put work in, at best it is effectively a hypothesis. It is the energy to ‘validate’ that idea that makes the idea ‘real’. In general, this is what I believe most stealth startups/labs are really trying to protect, the validation of a specific idea, and the specific method of executing that idea. All that said, I would argue that truly novel insights are exceptionally rare. If you indeed manage to get one, you should question yourself extensively to validate it truly is new, and if it is, double check that perhaps the reason it isn’t done is because it is not feasible to execute. Even if you pass all those gates, I would argue that unless you can do the necessary execution, the idea, no matter how spectacular, is only marginally valuable.
  - petra 8y ago
    Great insight. A few question: 1. So if an ideas guy does some basic prototyping and shows that the idea works, does it make the idea "real" ? Or does it really require 100% execution to be considered a serious contributor ? 2. >> what I believe most stealth startups/labs are really trying to protect, the validation of a specific idea, Could you please expand on that ? 3. What about doing serious research - finding in-depth and reliable knowledge, to show why the idea is likely to work ? Or similarly doing research to find cheap/easy ways to test the idea ? I'm asking as someone who is strong in research skills, but relatively weak in executing.
amelius 8y ago
> Something I always mentor those that ask about an idea: “Any good idea you have, 100 other people have already had it. Any GREAT idea you have, 1000 people have already had it. The difference is how well you execute it.” What does that say about patents, and the patent system?
- bo1024 8y ago
  Patents are not (supposed to be) on ideas, but instead on executions of them.
- PeterisP 8y ago
  Well, patents aren't really about ideas like an "idea guy" would provide - an idea of "it'd be nice to have a thingy that does X" is unpatentable; but you can get a patent for its execution, for actually finding a particular solution that implements that idea. And even then only that particular solution is patented - if somebody else can take your idea and develop a better solution that achieves the same result more effectively with a different method and apparatus, then the patent system allows them to capture the value of that execution.

matwood 8y ago

This is why I'm always working on making sure my default mode is execute. By executing over and over, people get better at...executing. I personally think people can see this within themselves. We have ideas that we should eat better and exercise, but knowing and doing are very different things.

JohnFen 8y ago

A million times this. I usually phrase it as "ideas are a dime a dozen. The thing that is of actual value is the hard work of execution."

nikanj 8y ago

I always use the pool table analogy. You’ll never win a game of pool by having better ideas, unless you have the execution to back them up. Meanwhile, the guy with a solid execution of a really basic strategy is nigh unbeatable.

marviel 8y ago

For sure. I think people can spend a lot of energy trying to protect their idea, and almost no energy in establishing if there is any prior work. I think this comes from two main places: 1) A desire to believe we are special in our insight into the problem. 2) (lesser) A lack of general awareness that knowing the prior work in a domain is insanely useful. 3) A lack of search knowhow when it comes to finding similar ideas to one's own. This of course is aided when you have a good general understanding of the domains your idea touches, because you have the power of a search vocabulary. If you can stand on someone else's failures and efforts, and reap the benefits of their (explicit or just effectively) research, why would you not spend the short amount of time digesting that, before reinventing the wheel? "If I have seen further it is by standing on the sholders [sic] of Giants." - Isaac Newton

nerpderp82 8y ago

If this is true, why do startups run in stealth mode and corporations have super secret labs? The "idea of" hotmail was amazing and easily communicated. The value immediate. There are clearly ideas that are not a dime a dozen. I have also solved seemingly intractable problems that groups had worked on for weeks with a single sentence. Every good idea has first thinker. I understand the stance that execution trumps the brilliance of the idea, but it overly devalues ideas themselves and encourages toil over elegance. Could you explain?

aerophilic 8y ago
I guess the simplest way to say it is the following: Yes, there truly are new ideas that no one has thought of. But for any new idea to truly be valuable, it has to be “worked”. This is true (IMHO) of anything, whether it is a way of viewing our would (physics), an insight into a new market (startup idea), or even a brand new way of doing something (pure invention). In every case, unless you put work in, at best it is effectively a hypothesis. It is the energy to ‘validate’ that idea that makes the idea ‘real’. In general, this is what I believe most stealth startups/labs are really trying to protect, the validation of a specific idea, and the specific method of executing that idea. All that said, I would argue that truly novel insights are exceptionally rare. If you indeed manage to get one, you should question yourself extensively to validate it truly is new, and if it is, double check that perhaps the reason it isn’t done is because it is not feasible to execute. Even if you pass all those gates, I would argue that unless you can do the necessary execution, the idea, no matter how spectacular, is only marginally valuable.
- petra 8y ago
  Great insight. A few question: 1. So if an ideas guy does some basic prototyping and shows that the idea works, does it make the idea "real" ? Or does it really require 100% execution to be considered a serious contributor ? 2. >> what I believe most stealth startups/labs are really trying to protect, the validation of a specific idea, Could you please expand on that ? 3. What about doing serious research - finding in-depth and reliable knowledge, to show why the idea is likely to work ? Or similarly doing research to find cheap/easy ways to test the idea ? I'm asking as someone who is strong in research skills, but relatively weak in executing.

amelius 8y ago

> Something I always mentor those that ask about an idea: “Any good idea you have, 100 other people have already had it. Any GREAT idea you have, 1000 people have already had it. The difference is how well you execute it.” What does that say about patents, and the patent system?

bo1024 8y ago
Patents are not (supposed to be) on ideas, but instead on executions of them.
PeterisP 8y ago
Well, patents aren't really about ideas like an "idea guy" would provide - an idea of "it'd be nice to have a thingy that does X" is unpatentable; but you can get a patent for its execution, for actually finding a particular solution that implements that idea. And even then only that particular solution is patented - if somebody else can take your idea and develop a better solution that achieves the same result more effectively with a different method and apparatus, then the patent system allows them to capture the value of that execution.