5 ms·

Ideas Matter

135 points by sneakersneaker 15y ago

dshankar 15y ago
The main reason I (and others) say "Ideas Don't Matter" is because there is an abundance of ideas. Too many people have too many ideas, and everyone thinks their ideas are great. This Silicon Valley 'mantra' (in my opinion) is valid in order to teach people the importance of execution.
- diego 15y ago
  There's an abundance of people too. You wouldn't say people don't matter. You can teach the importance of execution by emphasizing execution.E.g. two teams with the same good idea, one executed and the other one didn't. You don't need to devalue other factors in order to make a point.
  - jbwyme 15y ago
    People that don't execute don't matter. The idea of an "idea" is too abstract to have this argument really. If an idea is as long as a sentence with no further in depth exploration, it really doesn't matter. If it is becoming more of a plan then you might say it matters (which would be going down the path of executing an idea).
- ChuckMcM 15y ago
  I was going to say this as well. You need soil and water to plant crops but in the desert water is more valuable than the soil because its the harder commodity to obtain. In business solid execution is harder to get than new ideas, so it's true that having a good idea is important making it work is more so. The article says: "For Google, it was the idea of PageRank. Did search engines exist before? Sure they did. But it was that little spark of innovation, coupled with years of execution that got Google going. In fact even Google “borrowed” it’s idea of search advertising from what used to be called Goto.com and then became Overture.com. (Kudos to Bill Gross here for his role in Goto.com). That is a perfect example of how the idea mattered, but it also needed the execution to make it flourish." Which I think undermines the who 'ideas are important' theme. What was important about PageRank was the insight that it was an analog for social intent, and that social intent provided a useful ordering out of an otherwise random set of documents. Using that insight to design as document retrieval system which scaled and could operated cheaply enough made the insight useful. Its all mental gymnastics however until you put your money down. Then it becomes real. And its really hard to hand a check to someone you don't think can actually produce the thing they are talking about.
- rradu 15y ago
  Just because there are a lot of ideas doesn't mean that they are all on the same level. There is such a thing as a good idea.
CapitalistCartr 15y ago
Ideas matter like cash matters; only as an aid to execution. Any successful business of any sort will use many good ideas per year to succeed. Edison's great idea wasn't the electric light; many knew that was a good idea. Edison's idea was the industrialization of research; solve the problem by brute force. He used many good ideas along the way, many not his own.
mkr-hn 15y ago
It'll drive you mad if you try to take it too far. It's a shortcut to a more complex concept, not a rule.
ericflo 15y ago
A great team will eventually arrive at the right idea.
- stevenj 15y ago
  Do you think the Segway creators were merely a good team then?
  - pg 15y ago
    Judged by their results, yes. They were good at building things but didn't pay enough attention to people.
- ksolanki 15y ago
  Well, in my opinion this is only partly true. Conversely, a good idea also determines how good a team is.
mdariani 15y ago
ideas are worthless as long as there is no feasible concept behind it. there are so many ideas out there that nobody execute, so they are worth nothing. the team behind a great idea is many times more important than the idea itself. it's about people, people, people and then the idea.
InfinityX0 15y ago
Half (or more) of the problem with ideas is the vetting process. You need to vet your ideas. Very frequently, as stated in the article, some ideas are "dead on arrival". This is because founders don't have the proper frame of reference, they're expertise is lacking, or they've made some concept framed early on their baby - that is, unable to let go. Ideas need to be vetted. Like getting your first customers, in whatever you do, you need approval from something or someone to know that something is there, and you need it fast. You can't be in your basement grinding with one other person for four months just to find out you misappropriated your customer base, or the problem your software solves, only to find out there's nobody has that problem, nobody cares, or some amalgamation of that and many other factors. I see this elsewhere as well. People want to be a model their whole life but never had a hope from the getgo. They want to be an architect but their frame of reference is so off they'll never have a chance. Not saying that work can't make up for a lot of it, but I'll never in the NBA. Talent dictated that. There are several other dictators that create the same boundaries as well.
iag 15y ago
I typically agree with 99% of Manu's words of wisdom, but for this post in particular I have concerns that it could be misleading for some entrepreneurs. It is understandable from Manu's or other experienced entrepreneur's perspective, ideas are important. I don't deny that. That is because they have been through startups over and over again, these people understand the work that goes into the company months/years post-idea-conception. I would say a good portion of the people who are reading this site won't fall into that category. As a matter of fact, very few people do. Most of us are just budding entrepreneurs trying to our feet wet and trying to find our way to "make it". If you feel you fall into the latter category more than the former, read Manu's post with a grain of salt, it's _not_ really meant for you. I'd argue (with my limited knowledge) that it's more important for young entrepreneurs to know that ideas are a dime a dozen. By the time you come up with it, 10 other people have thought of it as well. What separates great ideas from good ideas is that you have a clear competitive advantage that can allow you to out-execute those other 10 people. This competitive advantage can be your passion, skill set, domain knowledge, connections, etc. So if I have to sum it up, and to modify Manu's post to fit the eyes of the budding entrepreneurs: It's not the idea that matters, it's the people + the idea that matters. - my 2c
rbreve 15y ago
an idea is just an hypothesis, you need to prove it, if it doesn't work you need to be able to change it and tweak it until it works. Give the same idea to 50 people, only one will execute it well.
jonnathanson 15y ago
People are too quick to create a dichotomy between Idea and Execution. A good idea isn't static; it unfolds and evolves over time. A powerful idea, well executed, leads to more powerful ideas and, in turn, better execution. When we stop thinking of ideas solely as the germinal stage of startups, and we expand our conception of them into something resembling a wave of constant, innovative inspiration, then we get to the heart of what a good idea really is.
stevenj 15y ago
Actions should (and do) speak loudest. For example, many here believe the future of Microsoft's consumer business is in trouble. I'm sure many have great ideas as to how to fix it. I even bet there are several senior people inside Microsoft who have great ideas as to how to fix it. But none of that really matters. Because the stuff that's getting shipped sucks.
pg 15y ago
This is rather an attack on a strawman. No one thinks that ideas don't matter at all. Obviously you have to have a good one at some point. When people say that execution matters more than the idea in a startup, what they're really saying is something fairly complicated: that you need both a good idea and good execution, but that (1) since good execution is rarer, you should worry more about that, and (2) good execution will tend to fix bad ideas, because if you pay attention to users and iterate fast, you will in the worst case end up with a good idea by successive approximations.
- math 15y ago
  Good execution pretty much is a continuous stream of good ideas. "The idea" is merely the top level idea, and it matters most because it is at the top level. Good execution is rarer because it requires not just the possession of a single idea, but the propensity to come up with them day in day out.
  - panic 15y ago
    Ed Catmull, president of Pixar, has made the same comment about their films. The entire video is worth watching, but the quote in question is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2h2lvhzMDc#t=22:01 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2h2lvhzMDc#t=22:01 - The other thing to note is, there is a confusion, I think, that the people have and is — the books and press kind of work this way in that we think about "an idea." When we think of ideas for movies, we think about ideas for products. And it's usually thought of as some singular thing. But the reality is, these successful movies — as with all successful products — have got thousands of ideas. It's just all sorts of things necessary to make it be successful. And you have to get most of them right to do it. And that's why you need a team that works well together.
- CloudOps42 15y ago
  Seems to me, a successful "startup"* needs to solve a problem, relieve pain, or create something revolutionary that creates elation/astonishment. It needs to be something the market wants. In other words, it is a great idea. Implementation is a matter of hiring the right tradesmen/tradeswomen to make it happen. People enjoy paying for what they want; they resent paying for what they need. Ideas uncover 'wants.' Frank Lloyd Wright. Ideas. General Patton. Ideas. Sir Richard Branson. Ideas. Sun Tzu. Ideas Clausewitz. Ideas Edson. Ideas. Ford. Ideas. Larry Page. Ideas. Sometimes, great ideas come from those who implement that idea, sometimes the ideas come from those outside the industry. Either way, it's the idea that is at the center of the product the market wants. * Startup: launch of a web-based application.
thentic 15y ago
You could think of it this way: Execution helps a bad idea exist and grow by hacking on it until all you're left with is a good idea... Ideas, whether good or bad, create the drive or motivation to start.
lotusleaf1987 15y ago
I don't think anyone said ideas don't matter, it's just an idea isn't something unique you can leverage. Two people can have the same idea and when all things are equal, it's the execution that really matters. Look at Myspace vs Facebook, Zune vs iPod, Yahoo vs Google.
sgentle 15y ago
I would make this distinction: Ideas, as in the process of thinking of new things, also known as design and creativity and other words people like, vs The Idea, which is an untouchable monolithic safety blanket common in startups, where the founder(s) are unwilling to challenge their core assumptions. This is usually because they think of creativity as a one-off moment of inspiration type affair and, through fear that it won't strike twice, stop trying. Truthfully, you have to execute a process to have good ideas, and processes for execution are ideas themselves. There's no dichotomy except what we make when we put The Idea (or perhaps even The Execution) up on a pedestal.
adamtmca 15y ago
I actually clicked on the google search. The second result, "Ideas are just multipliers of execution" is actually a very insightful answer to the idea/execution "question." http://sivers.org/multiply http://sivers.org/multiply
jdhopeunique 15y ago
Ideas and execution both matter. The real point of “It’s not the idea, it’s the execution.” is to emphasize that idea people (those who dream up an idea and expect others to do the hard work) cannot simply throw their idea out into the world without doing the work of promoting, building, and monetizing it. INTIITE is a useful phrase to apply to people, not products. You cannot really be an "idea person", but instead must be a person who GTD with an idea. People that GTD don't want to have to deal with people that think an idea entitles them to greater equity, hence the usefulness of INTIITE.
msort 15y ago
A excellent idea executed beautifully matters. Perhaps startups should spend much time experimenting with, pivoting with, possible ideas before focusing on one single idea 100%. Searching for the beautiful idea using a breadth-first rather than a depth-first approach.
barisme 15y ago
... if you execute them.
ender7 15y ago
One problem with this framing is that almost any idea interesting enough to base a company around will almost certainly change during the execution. The original idea for Twitter wasn't anywhere near what it became, and you can say the same thing about Facebook, Youtube, or pretty much any of the other Big Things to happen recently (some exceptions of course: PageRank was and is still mostly just PageRank). Thus, the execution is a central part of the "idea" process. Being an "idea" person without being an "execution" person leaves you open to a bunch of dangers - the biggest one being a sense of inadequacy. If all that you bring to the table is your idea baby, it will be really hard to kill it off and go with something else, even if it's the best decision. So either be good at "adapting" your idea, at times to the point of complete transformation, or start learning to execute.
6ren 15y ago
Re Google: not doing paid placement probably helped improve results more than PageRank. Also in terms of actually helping users, fast response and a sparse search-only page (not a cluttered portal), helped even more. Though I'd love to think The Algorithm was key, their main idea was to put serving customers before monetizing them.

135 points by sneakersneaker 15y ago

The main reason I (and others) say "Ideas Don't Matter" is because there is an abundance of ideas. Too many people have too many ideas, and everyone thinks their ideas are great. This Silicon Valley 'mantra' (in my opinion) is valid in order to teach people the importance of execution.

diego 15y ago
There's an abundance of people too. You wouldn't say people don't matter. You can teach the importance of execution by emphasizing execution.E.g. two teams with the same good idea, one executed and the other one didn't. You don't need to devalue other factors in order to make a point.
- jbwyme 15y ago
  People that don't execute don't matter. The idea of an "idea" is too abstract to have this argument really. If an idea is as long as a sentence with no further in depth exploration, it really doesn't matter. If it is becoming more of a plan then you might say it matters (which would be going down the path of executing an idea).
ChuckMcM 15y ago
I was going to say this as well. You need soil and water to plant crops but in the desert water is more valuable than the soil because its the harder commodity to obtain. In business solid execution is harder to get than new ideas, so it's true that having a good idea is important making it work is more so. The article says: "For Google, it was the idea of PageRank. Did search engines exist before? Sure they did. But it was that little spark of innovation, coupled with years of execution that got Google going. In fact even Google “borrowed” it’s idea of search advertising from what used to be called Goto.com and then became Overture.com. (Kudos to Bill Gross here for his role in Goto.com). That is a perfect example of how the idea mattered, but it also needed the execution to make it flourish." Which I think undermines the who 'ideas are important' theme. What was important about PageRank was the insight that it was an analog for social intent, and that social intent provided a useful ordering out of an otherwise random set of documents. Using that insight to design as document retrieval system which scaled and could operated cheaply enough made the insight useful. Its all mental gymnastics however until you put your money down. Then it becomes real. And its really hard to hand a check to someone you don't think can actually produce the thing they are talking about.
rradu 15y ago
Just because there are a lot of ideas doesn't mean that they are all on the same level. There is such a thing as a good idea.

CapitalistCartr 15y ago

Ideas matter like cash matters; only as an aid to execution. Any successful business of any sort will use many good ideas per year to succeed. Edison's great idea wasn't the electric light; many knew that was a good idea. Edison's idea was the industrialization of research; solve the problem by brute force. He used many good ideas along the way, many not his own.

mkr-hn 15y ago

It'll drive you mad if you try to take it too far. It's a shortcut to a more complex concept, not a rule.

ericflo 15y ago

A great team will eventually arrive at the right idea.

stevenj 15y ago
Do you think the Segway creators were merely a good team then?
- pg 15y ago
  Judged by their results, yes. They were good at building things but didn't pay enough attention to people.
ksolanki 15y ago
Well, in my opinion this is only partly true. Conversely, a good idea also determines how good a team is.

mdariani 15y ago

ideas are worthless as long as there is no feasible concept behind it. there are so many ideas out there that nobody execute, so they are worth nothing. the team behind a great idea is many times more important than the idea itself. it's about people, people, people and then the idea.

InfinityX0 15y ago

Half (or more) of the problem with ideas is the vetting process. You need to vet your ideas. Very frequently, as stated in the article, some ideas are "dead on arrival". This is because founders don't have the proper frame of reference, they're expertise is lacking, or they've made some concept framed early on their baby - that is, unable to let go. Ideas need to be vetted. Like getting your first customers, in whatever you do, you need approval from something or someone to know that something is there, and you need it fast. You can't be in your basement grinding with one other person for four months just to find out you misappropriated your customer base, or the problem your software solves, only to find out there's nobody has that problem, nobody cares, or some amalgamation of that and many other factors. I see this elsewhere as well. People want to be a model their whole life but never had a hope from the getgo. They want to be an architect but their frame of reference is so off they'll never have a chance. Not saying that work can't make up for a lot of it, but I'll never in the NBA. Talent dictated that. There are several other dictators that create the same boundaries as well.

iag 15y ago

I typically agree with 99% of Manu's words of wisdom, but for this post in particular I have concerns that it could be misleading for some entrepreneurs. It is understandable from Manu's or other experienced entrepreneur's perspective, ideas are important. I don't deny that. That is because they have been through startups over and over again, these people understand the work that goes into the company months/years post-idea-conception. I would say a good portion of the people who are reading this site won't fall into that category. As a matter of fact, very few people do. Most of us are just budding entrepreneurs trying to our feet wet and trying to find our way to "make it". If you feel you fall into the latter category more than the former, read Manu's post with a grain of salt, it's _not_ really meant for you. I'd argue (with my limited knowledge) that it's more important for young entrepreneurs to know that ideas are a dime a dozen. By the time you come up with it, 10 other people have thought of it as well. What separates great ideas from good ideas is that you have a clear competitive advantage that can allow you to out-execute those other 10 people. This competitive advantage can be your passion, skill set, domain knowledge, connections, etc. So if I have to sum it up, and to modify Manu's post to fit the eyes of the budding entrepreneurs: It's not the idea that matters, it's the people + the idea that matters. - my 2c

rbreve 15y ago

an idea is just an hypothesis, you need to prove it, if it doesn't work you need to be able to change it and tweak it until it works. Give the same idea to 50 people, only one will execute it well.

jonnathanson 15y ago

People are too quick to create a dichotomy between Idea and Execution. A good idea isn't static; it unfolds and evolves over time. A powerful idea, well executed, leads to more powerful ideas and, in turn, better execution. When we stop thinking of ideas solely as the germinal stage of startups, and we expand our conception of them into something resembling a wave of constant, innovative inspiration, then we get to the heart of what a good idea really is.

stevenj 15y ago

Actions should (and do) speak loudest. For example, many here believe the future of Microsoft's consumer business is in trouble. I'm sure many have great ideas as to how to fix it. I even bet there are several senior people inside Microsoft who have great ideas as to how to fix it. But none of that really matters. Because the stuff that's getting shipped sucks.

pg 15y ago

This is rather an attack on a strawman. No one thinks that ideas don't matter at all. Obviously you have to have a good one at some point. When people say that execution matters more than the idea in a startup, what they're really saying is something fairly complicated: that you need both a good idea and good execution, but that (1) since good execution is rarer, you should worry more about that, and (2) good execution will tend to fix bad ideas, because if you pay attention to users and iterate fast, you will in the worst case end up with a good idea by successive approximations.

math 15y ago
Good execution pretty much is a continuous stream of good ideas. "The idea" is merely the top level idea, and it matters most because it is at the top level. Good execution is rarer because it requires not just the possession of a single idea, but the propensity to come up with them day in day out.
- panic 15y ago
  Ed Catmull, president of Pixar, has made the same comment about their films. The entire video is worth watching, but the quote in question is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2h2lvhzMDc#t=22:01 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2h2lvhzMDc#t=22:01 - The other thing to note is, there is a confusion, I think, that the people have and is — the books and press kind of work this way in that we think about "an idea." When we think of ideas for movies, we think about ideas for products. And it's usually thought of as some singular thing. But the reality is, these successful movies — as with all successful products — have got thousands of ideas. It's just all sorts of things necessary to make it be successful. And you have to get most of them right to do it. And that's why you need a team that works well together.
CloudOps42 15y ago
Seems to me, a successful "startup"* needs to solve a problem, relieve pain, or create something revolutionary that creates elation/astonishment. It needs to be something the market wants. In other words, it is a great idea. Implementation is a matter of hiring the right tradesmen/tradeswomen to make it happen. People enjoy paying for what they want; they resent paying for what they need. Ideas uncover 'wants.' Frank Lloyd Wright. Ideas. General Patton. Ideas. Sir Richard Branson. Ideas. Sun Tzu. Ideas Clausewitz. Ideas Edson. Ideas. Ford. Ideas. Larry Page. Ideas. Sometimes, great ideas come from those who implement that idea, sometimes the ideas come from those outside the industry. Either way, it's the idea that is at the center of the product the market wants. * Startup: launch of a web-based application.

thentic 15y ago

You could think of it this way: Execution helps a bad idea exist and grow by hacking on it until all you're left with is a good idea... Ideas, whether good or bad, create the drive or motivation to start.

lotusleaf1987 15y ago

I don't think anyone said ideas don't matter, it's just an idea isn't something unique you can leverage. Two people can have the same idea and when all things are equal, it's the execution that really matters. Look at Myspace vs Facebook, Zune vs iPod, Yahoo vs Google.

sgentle 15y ago

I would make this distinction: Ideas, as in the process of thinking of new things, also known as design and creativity and other words people like, vs The Idea, which is an untouchable monolithic safety blanket common in startups, where the founder(s) are unwilling to challenge their core assumptions. This is usually because they think of creativity as a one-off moment of inspiration type affair and, through fear that it won't strike twice, stop trying. Truthfully, you have to execute a process to have good ideas, and processes for execution are ideas themselves. There's no dichotomy except what we make when we put The Idea (or perhaps even The Execution) up on a pedestal.

adamtmca 15y ago

I actually clicked on the google search. The second result, "Ideas are just multipliers of execution" is actually a very insightful answer to the idea/execution "question." http://sivers.org/multiply http://sivers.org/multiply

jdhopeunique 15y ago

Ideas and execution both matter. The real point of “It’s not the idea, it’s the execution.” is to emphasize that idea people (those who dream up an idea and expect others to do the hard work) cannot simply throw their idea out into the world without doing the work of promoting, building, and monetizing it. INTIITE is a useful phrase to apply to people, not products. You cannot really be an "idea person", but instead must be a person who GTD with an idea. People that GTD don't want to have to deal with people that think an idea entitles them to greater equity, hence the usefulness of INTIITE.

msort 15y ago

A excellent idea executed beautifully matters. Perhaps startups should spend much time experimenting with, pivoting with, possible ideas before focusing on one single idea 100%. Searching for the beautiful idea using a breadth-first rather than a depth-first approach.

barisme 15y ago

... if you execute them.

ender7 15y ago

One problem with this framing is that almost any idea interesting enough to base a company around will almost certainly change during the execution. The original idea for Twitter wasn't anywhere near what it became, and you can say the same thing about Facebook, Youtube, or pretty much any of the other Big Things to happen recently (some exceptions of course: PageRank was and is still mostly just PageRank). Thus, the execution is a central part of the "idea" process. Being an "idea" person without being an "execution" person leaves you open to a bunch of dangers - the biggest one being a sense of inadequacy. If all that you bring to the table is your idea baby, it will be really hard to kill it off and go with something else, even if it's the best decision. So either be good at "adapting" your idea, at times to the point of complete transformation, or start learning to execute.

6ren 15y ago

Re Google: not doing paid placement probably helped improve results more than PageRank. Also in terms of actually helping users, fast response and a sparse search-only page (not a cluttered portal), helped even more. Though I'd love to think The Algorithm was key, their main idea was to put serving customers before monetizing them.