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This is pure nonsense. Please, please, please stop talking about ideas. What people steal --and the only thing with huge value-- are MARKET OPPORTUNITIES. Ide

This is pure nonsense. Please, please, please stop talking about ideas. What people steal --and the only thing with huge value-- are MARKET OPPORTUNITIES. Ideas are easy to generate. Everyone has loads of them. When an idea is combined with the work necessary to identify if a market opportunity exists it can become invaluable. Ideas are not stolen because an idea, all by itself, does not identify whether or not anyone wants the thing or the service. If I told you that I had an idea to make a dish-washing sponge in the shape of a smiley face you, more than likely, would walk away laughing. So would I if someone came to me with that idea. How would you react if I actually manufactured them, sold a bunch and showed you that people want them? Right. You'd pay attention. You wouldn't laugh. And you certainly wouldn't walk away. Well, I saw exactly that happen at the Shark Tank show recently. I think the guy got a $300K investment. $300K for the idea for a friggin smiley-face sponge? Nope. $300K for the market opportunity he uncovered. If you present someone with an idea and that idea is so good that it identifies the market opportunity without further work, well, it might get stolen. With most other ideas they'll listen and nod and possibly even think you are a moron and completely forget what you told them. If, on the other hand, you show them an idea coupled with your work confirming that a good scalable market exists, hold on! The market opportunity will either be stolen or you'll have someone all over you wanting to become an investor or participate in some manner in the opportunity you identified.

fragsworth 14y ago
"Ideas" and "market opportunities" sort of go hand in hand, don't you think? The market opportunity is assumed when someone talks about an idea for a business.
- Robin_Message 14y ago
  Yes, and validating the assumption of a market opportunity is called finding product-market fit. Failing to do so is a leading cause of death among startups. An actual market opportunity, not an assumed one, is certainly valuable - which is why a VC will invest in it where they wouldn't invest in just an idea.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- robomartin 14y ago
  > "Ideas" and "market opportunities" sort of go hand in hand Only when the idea precedes the exploration of the opportunity space. Have an idea -> Build a prototype -> Show it around -> Close some sales. Here the idea is related to the market opportunity. It triggered a search for the opportunity when someone was interested or puzzled enough to do the work. Few will invest in an idea unless there's some kind of "sugar on top" that reveals really good potential for a market opportunity. Many will invest in a reasonably tested market opportunity. When are an idea and a market opportunity not connected? When the idea does not precede the market opportunity. I'll give you a couple of concrete examples from my own life. A friend of mine came over one day many years ago and said that his contact at one of the local film studios told him that they were looking for a carpenter that would make them 100 sets of this specially designed piece of furniture for an expansion project. My friend knew that I, when not coding or designing products, liked to, among other things, do woodworking projects. I also had a pretty niche setup in my garage at the time. So, here's an opportunity presented to me which had not originated with an idea. What did we do? We spent that weekend making an unsolicited sample of the piece the studio needed. He delivered it on Monday to his contact along with pricing. By Wednesday we got the deal. By Saturday I had a pile of furniture-grade plywood in front of my house that was eight feet tall. We setup an assembly line and spent a week (with some help) cranking out the pieces. My neighbors were puzzled and probably somewhat concerned. A couple of them came over to help for a few bucks. Delivered on time and walked away with $60K profit. Sweet. Any able carpenter would have taken that opportunity and run with it. We just ran faster and put a solution in front of the customer as painlessly and well-executed as possible. Another time I had someone call me to tell me that there was a company in need of a box built to translate a communications protocol in real time. RS422 in and out. Status display. Power button. The conversations went something like this: Me: "How many?" Him: "Probably 25 per month" Me: "How much are they willing to pay?" Him: "They've been trying for months but it's a bunch of Optics PhD's and this isn't their thing. They are desperate for a solution". Me: "Why?" Him: "They have sold a bunch of these units at about $500K a piece and this has been one of the only reasons they can't deliver." Me: "I can meet with them tomorrow AM" End result: I sold them a protocol converter box for $3,000 a pop for the first 25 units, $2,000 each for the next 75 and $1,000 each thereafter in lots of 100 units. I built it in a weekend: 1 RU enclosure. Off the shelf 8051 board. Small custom board with RS422 drivers and receivers. LCD display. Power supply. Connectors. I don't think the total cost exceeded $150. It would have been a sweet ride except that about six months later they got acquired by a large multinational and, effectively, shut down. Again, a market opportunity that did not come from an idea. Now, what if I said? "Let's build an RS422 protocol converter box and sell it for $3,000". And I did this in complete isolation of having identified a market need? Well, it'd be a flop. Sometimes fining opportunities is like finding a needle in a haystack. Someone almost has to sit on it for you to become aware it even exists.
zaidf 14y ago
What you refer to as market opportunity is also commonly considered to be an idea. For example, lets say you find a group of folks willing to pay $1,000 for widgets that cost pennies because you discovered that (a) they don't know about these widgets and (b) it solves a major painpoint. Both are considered ideas.
- robomartin 14y ago
  > What you refer to as market opportunity is also commonly considered to be an idea. Nope. Wrong. The idea in your example is: "I want to make a widget that does x". The opportunity is: "I made some widgets that do x and 100 people bought them at $1,000 each during the last 30 days". An idea without an opportunity is: "I made some widgets that do x and I only found one person during the last 30 days who said they'd be willing to pay $50 for it". Another idea is: "Let's make a website that allows employers to keep track of employee productivity" The opportunity might be: "We built a prototype of a website that allows employers to keep track of employee productivity, showed it to ten companies and two of them bought licenses for $2,000 per month". The lack of opportunity might look like this: "We built a prototype of a website that allows employers to keep track of employee productivity, showed it to ten companies and none of them saw enough value to even test it for free". In other words, opportunities represent a very direct link to actually having a real business that can scale and grow. Go ahead, quit your job and take idea number two above. Spend three months developing a prototype. No clue if there's a market opportunity there. It's probably worth millions. Maybe.
  - nickzarzycki 14y ago
    So, really, an opportunity is a tested idea. I completely agree. It's hard to come up with an idea without at least some intuitive sense of what kind of need/desire its fulfilling. I think people deceive themselves here because they have a naturally inflated sense of how great their ideas are. To use your phrasing: people think their idea is great enough to require very little testing to become an opportunity - their intuitive sense of how great their idea is is enough to begin immediately calling it an opportunity.
medinismo 14y ago
completely agree with this argument. I really like the authors argument that when the time is right many people will have the same idea at the same time. copying an idea is trivial, copying the execution, the stamina, the bravado to get shit done, and the balls to get other people to follow - significantly more difficult
reefoctopus 14y ago
The guy on shark tank with the smiley face sponge had one patent and two others pending. The idea wasn't the smiley face, it was a material which changed properties depending on temperature.

fragsworth 14y ago

"Ideas" and "market opportunities" sort of go hand in hand, don't you think? The market opportunity is assumed when someone talks about an idea for a business.

Robin_Message 14y ago
Yes, and validating the assumption of a market opportunity is called finding product-market fit. Failing to do so is a leading cause of death among startups. An actual market opportunity, not an assumed one, is certainly valuable - which is why a VC will invest in it where they wouldn't invest in just an idea.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
robomartin 14y ago
> "Ideas" and "market opportunities" sort of go hand in hand Only when the idea precedes the exploration of the opportunity space. Have an idea -> Build a prototype -> Show it around -> Close some sales. Here the idea is related to the market opportunity. It triggered a search for the opportunity when someone was interested or puzzled enough to do the work. Few will invest in an idea unless there's some kind of "sugar on top" that reveals really good potential for a market opportunity. Many will invest in a reasonably tested market opportunity. When are an idea and a market opportunity not connected? When the idea does not precede the market opportunity. I'll give you a couple of concrete examples from my own life. A friend of mine came over one day many years ago and said that his contact at one of the local film studios told him that they were looking for a carpenter that would make them 100 sets of this specially designed piece of furniture for an expansion project. My friend knew that I, when not coding or designing products, liked to, among other things, do woodworking projects. I also had a pretty niche setup in my garage at the time. So, here's an opportunity presented to me which had not originated with an idea. What did we do? We spent that weekend making an unsolicited sample of the piece the studio needed. He delivered it on Monday to his contact along with pricing. By Wednesday we got the deal. By Saturday I had a pile of furniture-grade plywood in front of my house that was eight feet tall. We setup an assembly line and spent a week (with some help) cranking out the pieces. My neighbors were puzzled and probably somewhat concerned. A couple of them came over to help for a few bucks. Delivered on time and walked away with $60K profit. Sweet. Any able carpenter would have taken that opportunity and run with it. We just ran faster and put a solution in front of the customer as painlessly and well-executed as possible. Another time I had someone call me to tell me that there was a company in need of a box built to translate a communications protocol in real time. RS422 in and out. Status display. Power button. The conversations went something like this: Me: "How many?" Him: "Probably 25 per month" Me: "How much are they willing to pay?" Him: "They've been trying for months but it's a bunch of Optics PhD's and this isn't their thing. They are desperate for a solution". Me: "Why?" Him: "They have sold a bunch of these units at about $500K a piece and this has been one of the only reasons they can't deliver." Me: "I can meet with them tomorrow AM" End result: I sold them a protocol converter box for $3,000 a pop for the first 25 units, $2,000 each for the next 75 and $1,000 each thereafter in lots of 100 units. I built it in a weekend: 1 RU enclosure. Off the shelf 8051 board. Small custom board with RS422 drivers and receivers. LCD display. Power supply. Connectors. I don't think the total cost exceeded $150. It would have been a sweet ride except that about six months later they got acquired by a large multinational and, effectively, shut down. Again, a market opportunity that did not come from an idea. Now, what if I said? "Let's build an RS422 protocol converter box and sell it for $3,000". And I did this in complete isolation of having identified a market need? Well, it'd be a flop. Sometimes fining opportunities is like finding a needle in a haystack. Someone almost has to sit on it for you to become aware it even exists.

zaidf 14y ago

What you refer to as market opportunity is also commonly considered to be an idea. For example, lets say you find a group of folks willing to pay $1,000 for widgets that cost pennies because you discovered that (a) they don't know about these widgets and (b) it solves a major painpoint. Both are considered ideas.

robomartin 14y ago
> What you refer to as market opportunity is also commonly considered to be an idea. Nope. Wrong. The idea in your example is: "I want to make a widget that does x". The opportunity is: "I made some widgets that do x and 100 people bought them at $1,000 each during the last 30 days". An idea without an opportunity is: "I made some widgets that do x and I only found one person during the last 30 days who said they'd be willing to pay $50 for it". Another idea is: "Let's make a website that allows employers to keep track of employee productivity" The opportunity might be: "We built a prototype of a website that allows employers to keep track of employee productivity, showed it to ten companies and two of them bought licenses for $2,000 per month". The lack of opportunity might look like this: "We built a prototype of a website that allows employers to keep track of employee productivity, showed it to ten companies and none of them saw enough value to even test it for free". In other words, opportunities represent a very direct link to actually having a real business that can scale and grow. Go ahead, quit your job and take idea number two above. Spend three months developing a prototype. No clue if there's a market opportunity there. It's probably worth millions. Maybe.
- nickzarzycki 14y ago
  So, really, an opportunity is a tested idea. I completely agree. It's hard to come up with an idea without at least some intuitive sense of what kind of need/desire its fulfilling. I think people deceive themselves here because they have a naturally inflated sense of how great their ideas are. To use your phrasing: people think their idea is great enough to require very little testing to become an opportunity - their intuitive sense of how great their idea is is enough to begin immediately calling it an opportunity.

medinismo 14y ago

completely agree with this argument. I really like the authors argument that when the time is right many people will have the same idea at the same time. copying an idea is trivial, copying the execution, the stamina, the bravado to get shit done, and the balls to get other people to follow - significantly more difficult

reefoctopus 14y ago

The guy on shark tank with the smiley face sponge had one patent and two others pending. The idea wasn't the smiley face, it was a material which changed properties depending on temperature.