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Ask HN: When should you not tell people your ideas?
I went to an event for founders looking to meet partners and practice pitching. Some wanted help others wanted opinions.
At the end of the night I was talking with someone I'd been hanging out with most of the night. Mentioned an idea I'd been working on for a little while. He saw the money potential in it. And said it's better to test it and that he could probably build a prototype in an hour.
Haven't heard from him since. I know it's all about execution, but it's a simple idea. It's been a few weeks. He's probably just been busy/lazy.
But anyway, how much should you tell people about things you're working on?
- Skywing 16y agoThis is a good example of why you, yourself, should have made a minimally viable product prior to pitching it to other developers. I don't think he's gone home and began writing his own - that's not what I'm getting at. I'm just saying, feedback is much more constructive when you can show people functionality right then and there. If all you can show people is a Photoshop rendering of the design, or can only give them a verbal description of it, the feedback you get is going to be about that Photoshop image. For example, they're going to be knit-picky about button placement or font choice rather than whether or not they'd find the service useful. Also, if you had gone in there with a demo to show, perhaps it'd seem more concrete to others and they'd be more willing to jump on board rather than ignore your messages. edit: I guess to be more direct about your question - I tell people my ideas usually as soon as I begin to think that I may be on to something. I tell my close circle of friends first, to kind of bounce around the idea. Then, I built a super basic demo in a night or two and go toss it around on IRC and here on HN.
- scorpioxy 16y agoI wouldn't take the "in an hour" thing too seriously. We all say that, but what it really means is that the basic idea is not that difficult to implement a prototype for and see if our assumptions are correct. They rarely are. But to answer your question, I would always share my ideas with people who are interested. The details are probably too much for a casual conversation, so that's what I won't get into unless I know that there's a purpose for the conversation such as co-founder seeking, investor, idea feedback...