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Facing the fact that ideas are ten a penny, it makes sense to see what necessary but perhaps still insufficient accessories an idea needs to prosper. In order o

Facing the fact that ideas are ten a penny, it makes sense to see what necessary but perhaps still insufficient accessories an idea needs to prosper. In order of increasing value; an idea a good idea a good implementable idea a good implementable idea whose time has come an invention (the concrete verification of an idea) a design ( a workable invention) a potential product (reproducible/manufacturable design) a potentially profitable product a marketable and profitable product a marketable, profitable product, backed by money and good luck

labrador 4y ago
> Facing the fact that ideas are ten a penny I've heard this before from inventors. It's the work you put in to realize the idea, they say. But they're inventors. They have a lot of ideas. Average people don't have a lot of ideas. Can we at least appreciate when we come up with an idea?
- dfee 4y ago
  It’s vanity. Once you figure out how to come up with ideas, it’s really easy to have them - always and everywhere. But that’s really the first stage of the funnel. I don’t believe quality of ideas is even most useful, but instead your flexibility in refining the idea to pump it through the funnel listed above. Getting attached to an idea, and especially celebrating the having of an idea, is useless. Numerous metaphors here that others can bore us with, but don’t get distracted by realizing you can think: start actually thinking instead.
- Isamu 4y ago
  Linus Pauling said the trick to having great ideas was having many ideas and then doing the work to prove most of them are terrible. I think it’s always a slog that most people aren’t willing to do.
  - daniel-cussen 4y ago
clnq 4y ago
Through experience, I have come to believe that an idea could seem like all of these, but when a team starts to work on it, a lot of additional not-so-pretty aspects of the idea generally get uncovered. They show up weeks, months, and years into development and are very difficult to predict upfront. And whether the idea is good or not seems to depend on what gets uncovered. To use an example from my industry (video games), a game idea might seem good, implementable, easy to design, marketable and profitable. But in the process of implementing it (even very late sometimes), it might become very obvious to everyone that it's not fun and there's no way to make it fun. I have also worked in an aviation startup where a software product we built was a good idea and already needed by some clients (govt/military), but there was interest growing in the business market. We developed it, govt started using it (with great feedback), we had enough funding for a few years, and we marketed it enough to start some b2b conversations and see some nice best case scenario financial projections. And it never sold at a price that would have kept the startup in business. We scaled down, founders worked unpaid for a while, and then it was passed on to a university for their students to maintain for experience and to fulfil govt needs. The final earnings from the tech and company sale after all legalese costs: not seven figures, not six, nor five - two. The final verdict for this idea: too ahead of its time for many potential clients who would have probably been late adopters (even if some were extremely eager to adopt immediately). From my (limited) experience, it takes a lot of time and effort to see flaws with most ideas. I think it's very difficult to evaluate an idea upfront with some kind of rubric, even though many people suggest using theirs. And yours is not a bad rubric - it covers many obvious potential defects with a given idea.
- nonrandomstring 4y ago
  Good points. A commenter in this thread [1] said that's what agile is for (to make mistakes), but people are aftraid of doing real agile. What I wanted to advocate for is little pathfinder "probe teams" that can scout ahead with rapid POCs and find the pitfalls. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/context?id=33392241 https://news.ycombinator.com/context?id=33392241
simonebrunozzi 4y ago
good luck might be the most important part :)
- nonrandomstring 4y ago
  You're right. Thinking it over I'd omit the word "necessary". I rushed to generalise filters that, on reflection, are mostly apropos physical consumer products. Some truly awful ideas just leapfrog the entire filter chain due to extraordinary luck or the power of relentless marketing money. That's the essence of pop music I guess.

labrador 4y ago

> Facing the fact that ideas are ten a penny I've heard this before from inventors. It's the work you put in to realize the idea, they say. But they're inventors. They have a lot of ideas. Average people don't have a lot of ideas. Can we at least appreciate when we come up with an idea?

dfee 4y ago
It’s vanity. Once you figure out how to come up with ideas, it’s really easy to have them - always and everywhere. But that’s really the first stage of the funnel. I don’t believe quality of ideas is even most useful, but instead your flexibility in refining the idea to pump it through the funnel listed above. Getting attached to an idea, and especially celebrating the having of an idea, is useless. Numerous metaphors here that others can bore us with, but don’t get distracted by realizing you can think: start actually thinking instead.
Isamu 4y ago
Linus Pauling said the trick to having great ideas was having many ideas and then doing the work to prove most of them are terrible. I think it’s always a slog that most people aren’t willing to do.
- daniel-cussen 4y ago

clnq 4y ago

Through experience, I have come to believe that an idea could seem like all of these, but when a team starts to work on it, a lot of additional not-so-pretty aspects of the idea generally get uncovered. They show up weeks, months, and years into development and are very difficult to predict upfront. And whether the idea is good or not seems to depend on what gets uncovered. To use an example from my industry (video games), a game idea might seem good, implementable, easy to design, marketable and profitable. But in the process of implementing it (even very late sometimes), it might become very obvious to everyone that it's not fun and there's no way to make it fun. I have also worked in an aviation startup where a software product we built was a good idea and already needed by some clients (govt/military), but there was interest growing in the business market. We developed it, govt started using it (with great feedback), we had enough funding for a few years, and we marketed it enough to start some b2b conversations and see some nice best case scenario financial projections. And it never sold at a price that would have kept the startup in business. We scaled down, founders worked unpaid for a while, and then it was passed on to a university for their students to maintain for experience and to fulfil govt needs. The final earnings from the tech and company sale after all legalese costs: not seven figures, not six, nor five - two. The final verdict for this idea: too ahead of its time for many potential clients who would have probably been late adopters (even if some were extremely eager to adopt immediately). From my (limited) experience, it takes a lot of time and effort to see flaws with most ideas. I think it's very difficult to evaluate an idea upfront with some kind of rubric, even though many people suggest using theirs. And yours is not a bad rubric - it covers many obvious potential defects with a given idea.

nonrandomstring 4y ago
Good points. A commenter in this thread [1] said that's what agile is for (to make mistakes), but people are aftraid of doing real agile. What I wanted to advocate for is little pathfinder "probe teams" that can scout ahead with rapid POCs and find the pitfalls. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/context?id=33392241 https://news.ycombinator.com/context?id=33392241

simonebrunozzi 4y ago

good luck might be the most important part :)

nonrandomstring 4y ago
You're right. Thinking it over I'd omit the word "necessary". I rushed to generalise filters that, on reflection, are mostly apropos physical consumer products. Some truly awful ideas just leapfrog the entire filter chain due to extraordinary luck or the power of relentless marketing money. That's the essence of pop music I guess.