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Yeah, no. IMHO A great, original idea, with adequate execution, is far, far, more valuable than a ho-hum idea executed perfectly. Just like a sputtering unreli

Yeah, no. IMHO A great, original idea, with adequate execution, is far, far, more valuable than a ho-hum idea executed perfectly. Just like a sputtering unreliable automobile is far more valuable than the finest horse and carriage, because it embodies future potential. Of course VC's don't want to pay for great ideas, and want you to believe that all the value is in the execution that they enable.

pcarolan 5y ago
This is right. Most great companies were just great ideas with early adequate execution. Airbnb was a great idea, did their data science and product focus help? Sure, but the idea was far greater value than those things. At the end of the day the technology isn't that different than a travel site. Most companies scale to the point where they pay tons of money to do local optimizations to squeeze out the last 20% of the juice. The first 80% is usually driven by tailwind around the idea.
- JacobThreeThree 5y ago
  >squeeze out the last 20% of the juice. Do you mean to tell me that Juicero wasn't a great idea?
  - MarcelOlsz 5y ago
    Didn't Juicero suck super hard though? Like it didn't function as advertised at all? If it was a proper industrial grade juicer for the home in the aesthetic of IKEA I'm sure they'd be OK now.
    - ianbutler 5y ago
      My understanding is their proprietary juice packs were able to be rolled and squeezed by hand so the question of why do I want this 300 dollar juicer for special packs I have to buy when I can squeeze the packs by hand popped up and it fell a part from there.
      - Sohcahtoa82 5y ago
        Yeah. Juicero wasn't even a juicer. It was an outright scam.
- kjksf 5y ago
  VRBO does the same thing as AirBnB. It launched in 1995, 26 years ago. AirBnB launched in 2008, 13 years ago. If anything AirBnB shows the power of execution, not the power of an idea.
dragontamer 5y ago
Everyone talks about Hitler's "Blitzkrieg", as if telling commanders "attack with all your might and speed" was the innovative part. No, the innovative part was that the German Commander, Gerd von Rundstedt, was able to maneuver 7 Panzer divisions (aka: 2000 tanks) through the Ardennes Forest in just 3 days. This was considered an impossible feat. The Ardennes Forest is heavily wooded and hilly terrain... with 200-meter cliffs littering the area, in a time before GPS-navigation. However, Mr. Rundstedt was a veteran of WWI and was extremely familiar with the forest, and served as an impressive guide. (EDIT: I had some details here but I double-checked and apparently was a bit confused earlier) The French counter-attack thought they had 2 weeks to prepare. They were caught with their pants down as 2000 tanks streamed out of the forest before they could mount their planned defense. Once The German army group secured the Ardennes Forest, the rest of the ~4-million men of the German Army poured through the Forest unhampered into France. ------- The fact of the matter is: details matter. Hitler wasn't the smart one here, it was Rundstedt. Very likely, the German scouting parties were mapping out the region and preparing long before the order was given. Little details that will never really be revealed in any history book, but these are the details that mattered in the Battle of France 1940.
- themodelplumber 5y ago
  Interesting. But, so...don't tell me "knowing the territory helps you move faster" is the new blitzkrieg-means-lightning-war?
  - dragontamer 5y ago
    "Blitzkreig" wasn't the important bit. The important bit was "throw Rundstedt at the problem". It doesn't matter what "idea" you gave Rundstedt, he will get the job done. He's the brilliant mind that allowed Poland, Belgium, France, and the southern-push of Soviet Union to be taken so quickly. Rundstedt lost his position as Field Marshal because he began advocating for peace after the Allied landings (Famously quoted as: "Make peace you fools! What else can you do?"). Still, he was reinstated in time for the Battle of the Bulge, and boy-oh-boy, was that a surprise to the Allies. I mean, Rundstedt couldn't squeeze a strategic victory from that hopeless situation of 1944/1945 (and was long an advocate of peace before then). But the fact that he grabbed a temporary tactical victory in those conditions just proves how incredible he was as a commander (well, that... and everything else he did in WW2). ------ Blitzkreig, as a strategy, is largely "Lets drive really fast in airplanes, cars and tanks, and communicate by radio to stay coordinated on the front". It was the obvious strategy given the new technological advancements at the time. It should be compared/contrasted with the French strategy (which was the use of heavier tanks that marched roughly the same speed as infantry... largely because the French haven't adopted the Radio yet)... but the Blitzkreig style had its flaws. French tanks had bigger guns and heavier armor: the early Panzers were light and fast but utterly outgunned. It almost certainly only worked because of Rundstedt's brilliance. If the French were given an extra few more days to pull their heavy tanks to Sedan (lets say The Battle of Sedan was just a few days later than historical), the French probably could have held off the German assault entirely. The Meuse is a huge river, it would have been very difficult for the Germans to cross if French heavy-armor was actually guarding that river. Indeed, the Germans were only successful because the bombing campaign vs the bridges of the Meuse were stopped by the Luftwaffe. And also because French troops panicked and retreated off of some misinformation. ----- That's a lot of details to get right: moving through mountainous + forested region (without roads!!) with speed. Defending key bridges using ground and air forces. A feint attack to the north to draw away French forces from this area. There was also some luck and awful moves by the French commanders in the area. Then adequately defending against the heavy-French armor counter-attack with only light tanks (tanks with 1/2 the armor and 1/4th the cannon size), to give time for your slower troops to cross the Ardenes and reinforce the position. The German tanks had to draw and trap the French heavy-armor against the larger anti-tank guns. The "standard" 37mm cannons on the Panzers and of typical infantry were literally bouncing off of French armor, dealing no effective damage. In contrast, the French Char B1, while slow, had a 75 mm gun that obliterated the German armor. EDIT: The French Char B1, thanks to the "Heavy Armor" style of the French, took on 140 shells from Panzer IV and Panzer III before destroying all 13 tank opponents simultaneously. That's the strength of the French counter-attack at the Battle of Stonne. Blitzkreig required higher-speed tanks with smaller guns and lesser armor. Really, if there were more B1s defending this area, the Germans would have been screwed.
outworlder 5y ago
> IMHO A great, original idea, with adequate execution, is far, far, more valuable than a ho-hum idea executed perfectly. Ok, so adjust the multipliers then. That's what a multiplier does.
codegeek 5y ago
I donno. Most great ideas fail and success rate is mostly dependent on execution. That is why I believe execution gets more weight than idea no matter how great the idea is. A great idea with bad execution = failure A mediocre idea with bad execution = failure A super bad idea with bad execution = failure However, you can take a semi bad or mediocre idea and execute the heck out of it = success. So I would look at the success numbers. "far far more valuable" is too subjective. Using your example, I personally wouldn't get into an unreliable vehicle but a faster horse that I know for sure works.
- sombremesa 5y ago
  What is execution? It seems that in some way, it's analogous to success itself. If you make apparently terrible decisions but your business succeeds despite you, would anyone really call that bad execution? If good execution equals success, then is it helpful to know that good execution equals success?
  - codegeek 5y ago
    I define execution as "doing something every day to keep making progress". It could be hiring someone, write that one small piece of code, creating a landing page or marketing content, talking to that customer, reaching out to a prospect, solving a problem for the team etc etc. Anything that is a step towards possible success. It is not a binary thing. Sometimes you do things that has a bad outcome. But if you do it over a long period and keep doing it with lessons learned and you succeed, that is execution.
    - sombremesa 5y ago
      How does this type of definition apply to something like Flappy Bird? Would you call that poor execution?
consultutah 5y ago
Simple business "ideas" like cleaning, plumbing, roofing, siding, etc. that a million other people are doing can all be built into 6 or 7 figure businesses through solid execution.
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  Most of those benefit by: - Geographically-limited servicing areas. Your online paper store can sell around the world. Your plumber's got to get to the house. - Constraints on throughput. Service jobs take time. They respond poorly to capital, automation, scaling, pre-fabrication, or other efficiency techniques, all of which are already optimised. The additional input is skill, which takes time to accumulate. - Hands-on. A plumber or roofer can't be downloaded, nor can you drop-ship your plumbing or roofing problem to a service centre in the next state or around the world. Work happens at the site itself. (This is strongly similar to but distinct from the first point.) - Reputation. Service work is difficult to assess, and indicia of quality include years in business, word-of-mouth, and local reputation, again, factors which take time to develop. - Limited opportunities within a given region. Because only so many professionals can be supported, the ones who do achieve a good reputation tend to crowd out competitors. It's difficult to break into a market. These "simple ideas" all face strong bounds on scaling or wide-area provisioning. Within a local region, accumulated skill and reputation form a strong basis for a reliable business with predictable annual revenues (if some seasonal variability). Simple ideas without the scaling constraints mentioned are far harder to break into as the competition is at a global scale. Even a strongly enthusiastic user-base (DuckDuckGo) or tech-giant backing (Bing, to repeat the example, or Google+) doesn't guarantee a sizeable market share.

pcarolan 5y ago

This is right. Most great companies were just great ideas with early adequate execution. Airbnb was a great idea, did their data science and product focus help? Sure, but the idea was far greater value than those things. At the end of the day the technology isn't that different than a travel site. Most companies scale to the point where they pay tons of money to do local optimizations to squeeze out the last 20% of the juice. The first 80% is usually driven by tailwind around the idea.

JacobThreeThree 5y ago
>squeeze out the last 20% of the juice. Do you mean to tell me that Juicero wasn't a great idea?
- MarcelOlsz 5y ago
  Didn't Juicero suck super hard though? Like it didn't function as advertised at all? If it was a proper industrial grade juicer for the home in the aesthetic of IKEA I'm sure they'd be OK now.
  - ianbutler 5y ago
    My understanding is their proprietary juice packs were able to be rolled and squeezed by hand so the question of why do I want this 300 dollar juicer for special packs I have to buy when I can squeeze the packs by hand popped up and it fell a part from there.
    - Sohcahtoa82 5y ago
      Yeah. Juicero wasn't even a juicer. It was an outright scam.
kjksf 5y ago
VRBO does the same thing as AirBnB. It launched in 1995, 26 years ago. AirBnB launched in 2008, 13 years ago. If anything AirBnB shows the power of execution, not the power of an idea.

dragontamer 5y ago

Everyone talks about Hitler's "Blitzkrieg", as if telling commanders "attack with all your might and speed" was the innovative part. No, the innovative part was that the German Commander, Gerd von Rundstedt, was able to maneuver 7 Panzer divisions (aka: 2000 tanks) through the Ardennes Forest in just 3 days. This was considered an impossible feat. The Ardennes Forest is heavily wooded and hilly terrain... with 200-meter cliffs littering the area, in a time before GPS-navigation. However, Mr. Rundstedt was a veteran of WWI and was extremely familiar with the forest, and served as an impressive guide. (EDIT: I had some details here but I double-checked and apparently was a bit confused earlier) The French counter-attack thought they had 2 weeks to prepare. They were caught with their pants down as 2000 tanks streamed out of the forest before they could mount their planned defense. Once The German army group secured the Ardennes Forest, the rest of the ~4-million men of the German Army poured through the Forest unhampered into France. ------- The fact of the matter is: details matter. Hitler wasn't the smart one here, it was Rundstedt. Very likely, the German scouting parties were mapping out the region and preparing long before the order was given. Little details that will never really be revealed in any history book, but these are the details that mattered in the Battle of France 1940.

themodelplumber 5y ago
Interesting. But, so...don't tell me "knowing the territory helps you move faster" is the new blitzkrieg-means-lightning-war?
- dragontamer 5y ago
  "Blitzkreig" wasn't the important bit. The important bit was "throw Rundstedt at the problem". It doesn't matter what "idea" you gave Rundstedt, he will get the job done. He's the brilliant mind that allowed Poland, Belgium, France, and the southern-push of Soviet Union to be taken so quickly. Rundstedt lost his position as Field Marshal because he began advocating for peace after the Allied landings (Famously quoted as: "Make peace you fools! What else can you do?"). Still, he was reinstated in time for the Battle of the Bulge, and boy-oh-boy, was that a surprise to the Allies. I mean, Rundstedt couldn't squeeze a strategic victory from that hopeless situation of 1944/1945 (and was long an advocate of peace before then). But the fact that he grabbed a temporary tactical victory in those conditions just proves how incredible he was as a commander (well, that... and everything else he did in WW2). ------ Blitzkreig, as a strategy, is largely "Lets drive really fast in airplanes, cars and tanks, and communicate by radio to stay coordinated on the front". It was the obvious strategy given the new technological advancements at the time. It should be compared/contrasted with the French strategy (which was the use of heavier tanks that marched roughly the same speed as infantry... largely because the French haven't adopted the Radio yet)... but the Blitzkreig style had its flaws. French tanks had bigger guns and heavier armor: the early Panzers were light and fast but utterly outgunned. It almost certainly only worked because of Rundstedt's brilliance. If the French were given an extra few more days to pull their heavy tanks to Sedan (lets say The Battle of Sedan was just a few days later than historical), the French probably could have held off the German assault entirely. The Meuse is a huge river, it would have been very difficult for the Germans to cross if French heavy-armor was actually guarding that river. Indeed, the Germans were only successful because the bombing campaign vs the bridges of the Meuse were stopped by the Luftwaffe. And also because French troops panicked and retreated off of some misinformation. ----- That's a lot of details to get right: moving through mountainous + forested region (without roads!!) with speed. Defending key bridges using ground and air forces. A feint attack to the north to draw away French forces from this area. There was also some luck and awful moves by the French commanders in the area. Then adequately defending against the heavy-French armor counter-attack with only light tanks (tanks with 1/2 the armor and 1/4th the cannon size), to give time for your slower troops to cross the Ardenes and reinforce the position. The German tanks had to draw and trap the French heavy-armor against the larger anti-tank guns. The "standard" 37mm cannons on the Panzers and of typical infantry were literally bouncing off of French armor, dealing no effective damage. In contrast, the French Char B1, while slow, had a 75 mm gun that obliterated the German armor. EDIT: The French Char B1, thanks to the "Heavy Armor" style of the French, took on 140 shells from Panzer IV and Panzer III before destroying all 13 tank opponents simultaneously. That's the strength of the French counter-attack at the Battle of Stonne. Blitzkreig required higher-speed tanks with smaller guns and lesser armor. Really, if there were more B1s defending this area, the Germans would have been screwed.

outworlder 5y ago

> IMHO A great, original idea, with adequate execution, is far, far, more valuable than a ho-hum idea executed perfectly. Ok, so adjust the multipliers then. That's what a multiplier does.

codegeek 5y ago

I donno. Most great ideas fail and success rate is mostly dependent on execution. That is why I believe execution gets more weight than idea no matter how great the idea is. A great idea with bad execution = failure A mediocre idea with bad execution = failure A super bad idea with bad execution = failure However, you can take a semi bad or mediocre idea and execute the heck out of it = success. So I would look at the success numbers. "far far more valuable" is too subjective. Using your example, I personally wouldn't get into an unreliable vehicle but a faster horse that I know for sure works.

sombremesa 5y ago
What is execution? It seems that in some way, it's analogous to success itself. If you make apparently terrible decisions but your business succeeds despite you, would anyone really call that bad execution? If good execution equals success, then is it helpful to know that good execution equals success?
- codegeek 5y ago
  I define execution as "doing something every day to keep making progress". It could be hiring someone, write that one small piece of code, creating a landing page or marketing content, talking to that customer, reaching out to a prospect, solving a problem for the team etc etc. Anything that is a step towards possible success. It is not a binary thing. Sometimes you do things that has a bad outcome. But if you do it over a long period and keep doing it with lessons learned and you succeed, that is execution.
  - sombremesa 5y ago
    How does this type of definition apply to something like Flappy Bird? Would you call that poor execution?

consultutah 5y ago

Simple business "ideas" like cleaning, plumbing, roofing, siding, etc. that a million other people are doing can all be built into 6 or 7 figure businesses through solid execution.

dredmorbius 5y ago
Most of those benefit by: - Geographically-limited servicing areas. Your online paper store can sell around the world. Your plumber's got to get to the house. - Constraints on throughput. Service jobs take time. They respond poorly to capital, automation, scaling, pre-fabrication, or other efficiency techniques, all of which are already optimised. The additional input is skill, which takes time to accumulate. - Hands-on. A plumber or roofer can't be downloaded, nor can you drop-ship your plumbing or roofing problem to a service centre in the next state or around the world. Work happens at the site itself. (This is strongly similar to but distinct from the first point.) - Reputation. Service work is difficult to assess, and indicia of quality include years in business, word-of-mouth, and local reputation, again, factors which take time to develop. - Limited opportunities within a given region. Because only so many professionals can be supported, the ones who do achieve a good reputation tend to crowd out competitors. It's difficult to break into a market. These "simple ideas" all face strong bounds on scaling or wide-area provisioning. Within a local region, accumulated skill and reputation form a strong basis for a reliable business with predictable annual revenues (if some seasonal variability). Simple ideas without the scaling constraints mentioned are far harder to break into as the competition is at a global scale. Even a strongly enthusiastic user-base (DuckDuckGo) or tech-giant backing (Bing, to repeat the example, or Google+) doesn't guarantee a sizeable market share.