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Let's not. Ideas really are worth nothing when compared to execution. Don't take my word for it: look at successful companies. What're the ideas behind the top

Let's not. Ideas really are worth nothing when compared to execution. Don't take my word for it: look at successful companies. What're the ideas behind the top 10 Fortune 500 companies? 1. WalMart - a bigger and cheaper convenience store 2. Exxon - gasoline 3. Chevron - gasoline 4. GE - conglomerate: appliances, aviation, electronics, energy, weapons, etc. 5. Bank of America - banking, investment banking 6. ConocoPhillips - gasoline 7. AT&T - telecommunications 8. Ford - cars 9. Chase - banking, investment banking 10. HP - computers, consulting services (Source: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2010/ http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2010/) The very repetitiveness of that list kinda shows you that novelty isn't really that exciting, eh? Want another data point? How about... oh I dunno... companies acquired by Google in the last few months: * Widevine - DRM for television * Phonetic Arts - speech recognition * BlindType - touch interface typing technology * Plannr - scheduling/calendaring * Quiksee - video * SocialDeck - gaming (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Google http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Google) Lots of good ideas there? Perhaps... but to my eyes each of these companies falls into the "$IDEA done right" style of startup. As do most, really -- nearly every startup pitch I've heard falls into the "X done right" rubric. And that's by no means a slight: taking something that generally sucks and doing it right is really hard. But that's the point, isn't it? Nearly every idea's been done before... it's about delivering better than the competition. So let's not start giving raw ideas much merit. This focus on results is good, and it's healthy, and it's what makes technology startups interesting. After all, technology is usually evolutionary, and rarely revolutionary. [Edit: sources, formatting.]

j_baker 16y ago
So then I take it that you feel watchpaintdry.com would be a hit if it were executed very well? Make no mistake about it, ideas are important. After all, look at some of the biggest names: Twitter, Facebook, AirBNB, Groupon... Do you honestly mean to tell me that the idea behind these sites had absolutely zero influence on their success?
- sp4rki 16y ago
  That's really not the point. It's not that execution will guarantee success. It's that execution is the differentiating factor (apart from luck) regarding various companies attempting the same idea. Neither Facebook, Twitter, or Groupon (can't really tell about AirBNB) where innovators on the ideas per se. Social networks for college students, message streams, and online deals/discounts, where by no means new innovative ideas. Their execution set them apart and with a bit a of luck and good timing they made it big. It's not that ideas don't matter. It's that 'new' ideas are almost always not new and have been done to death. What the idea is has never been a point being refuted by most people, what's being refuted is that the idea is what makes the difference. Lot's of people had the idea of online restaurant reservations, but that doesn't mean that everyone that brings that idea to fruition we'll be successful. It's a matter of execution that will increase any possibility of actually making it.
kragen 16y ago
I don't know if I agree. Ford became a significant car company through a combination of some pretty radical ideas: cars cheap enough to not be luxury goods; assembling cars on an assembly line like a meat-packing plant; mass-production factory workers being paid as if they were skilled artisans, not day laborers; and the vanadium steel that finally made the Model T possible. Ford's ideas about worker pay were so radical that they gave rise to Dodge v. Ford, where the court ruled that he was operating his business as a charity against the interests of his investors. Wal-Mart's supply-chain automation is legendary throughout industry. GE was founded on the idea of using charred bamboo for a lightbulb filament --- an idea that made practical the replacement of gaslights with electric lights --- and, more generally, Edison's invention of the modern industrial research lab, which produced the practical incandescent light above and a number of others. (More details at http://edison.rutgers.edu/list.htm http://edison.rutgers.edu/list.htm) HP was founded to commercialize an improved design for an electronic audio oscillator. AT&T's history starts with some ideas cooked up by Bell (or maybe Elisha Gray) and continues through more than a century of continued innovation. They've abused their power to suppress innovation any number of times, but they've also had to carry innovation forward merely in order to survive the company's growth. Now, most of these ideas weren't original to these companies. To my eye, what distinguishes the companies is that each of these companies made big bets on those ideas. If they'd bet too much on the wrong ideas --- as GE nearly did with direct current --- they would have gone broke. Of course, picking good ideas to bet the company on isn't sufficient. You also have to have the discipline to execute those ideas. But if you're executing dumb ideas with great discipline, you aren't going to be "X done right". You're going to be "X done wrong".
car 16y ago
All of the examples are companies built on a lot of know how and technology, surely covered by thousands of patents. So how are those not valuable ideas?

j_baker 16y ago

So then I take it that you feel watchpaintdry.com would be a hit if it were executed very well? Make no mistake about it, ideas are important. After all, look at some of the biggest names: Twitter, Facebook, AirBNB, Groupon... Do you honestly mean to tell me that the idea behind these sites had absolutely zero influence on their success?

sp4rki 16y ago
That's really not the point. It's not that execution will guarantee success. It's that execution is the differentiating factor (apart from luck) regarding various companies attempting the same idea. Neither Facebook, Twitter, or Groupon (can't really tell about AirBNB) where innovators on the ideas per se. Social networks for college students, message streams, and online deals/discounts, where by no means new innovative ideas. Their execution set them apart and with a bit a of luck and good timing they made it big. It's not that ideas don't matter. It's that 'new' ideas are almost always not new and have been done to death. What the idea is has never been a point being refuted by most people, what's being refuted is that the idea is what makes the difference. Lot's of people had the idea of online restaurant reservations, but that doesn't mean that everyone that brings that idea to fruition we'll be successful. It's a matter of execution that will increase any possibility of actually making it.

kragen 16y ago

I don't know if I agree. Ford became a significant car company through a combination of some pretty radical ideas: cars cheap enough to not be luxury goods; assembling cars on an assembly line like a meat-packing plant; mass-production factory workers being paid as if they were skilled artisans, not day laborers; and the vanadium steel that finally made the Model T possible. Ford's ideas about worker pay were so radical that they gave rise to Dodge v. Ford, where the court ruled that he was operating his business as a charity against the interests of his investors. Wal-Mart's supply-chain automation is legendary throughout industry. GE was founded on the idea of using charred bamboo for a lightbulb filament --- an idea that made practical the replacement of gaslights with electric lights --- and, more generally, Edison's invention of the modern industrial research lab, which produced the practical incandescent light above and a number of others. (More details at http://edison.rutgers.edu/list.htm http://edison.rutgers.edu/list.htm) HP was founded to commercialize an improved design for an electronic audio oscillator. AT&T's history starts with some ideas cooked up by Bell (or maybe Elisha Gray) and continues through more than a century of continued innovation. They've abused their power to suppress innovation any number of times, but they've also had to carry innovation forward merely in order to survive the company's growth. Now, most of these ideas weren't original to these companies. To my eye, what distinguishes the companies is that each of these companies made big bets on those ideas. If they'd bet too much on the wrong ideas --- as GE nearly did with direct current --- they would have gone broke. Of course, picking good ideas to bet the company on isn't sufficient. You also have to have the discipline to execute those ideas. But if you're executing dumb ideas with great discipline, you aren't going to be "X done right". You're going to be "X done wrong".

car 16y ago

All of the examples are companies built on a lot of know how and technology, surely covered by thousands of patents. So how are those not valuable ideas?