4 ms·

If Execution Is What Matters, Where Does That Leave Ideas?

19 points by vaksel 17y ago

bradgessler 17y ago
They're both equally as important; without one you can't sustain the other.
- ryanwaggoner 17y ago
  They're most definitely not equally important. There are far more examples of successful businesses built on the backs of mediocre ideas but with great execution than there are of ones built on the back of great ideas with mediocre execution. Also, your comment smacks of wanting to bitch about something because this is a TechCrunch story...did you even read it? The article is about the backstory of Tweetmeme and the bigger question of compensation for someone who was involved in the early idea of a startup, but wasn't there for the execution and risk-taking that came later.
  - bradgessler 17y ago
    If you have awesome execution over a long period of time without new ideas your product/service/whatever will stagnate. On the flip-side if you only have good ideas with poor execution nothing will get off the ground. Both are equally as important from my point-of-view and shouldn't be viewed as zero-sum. And no, I read the headline and skimmed the article.
    - ryanwaggoner 17y ago
      Great execution without new ideas over a long period of time describes a large portion of the Fortune 1000. Some industries are not driven by innovation.
      - bradgessler 17y ago
        I disagree. Most Fortune 1000 companies innovate indirectly in their products or services. You need "good ideas" to develop, manufacture, and distribute goods globally. That's why I don't look at "good ideas" and execution separately; ultimately you need good ideas to feed into the execution of a product.
  - adharmad 17y ago
    "They're most definitely not equally important. There are far more examples of successful businesses built on the backs of mediocre ideas but with great execution than there are of ones built on the back of great ideas with mediocre execution." That may be because genuinely new ideas are hard to come by today. There is also a lot of risk associated with them. Execution, although it has its pitfalls, largely depends on timing and effort.
pmichaud 17y ago
He's right about the idea being the launch pad, but it's more like the first step up an uncharted mountain. The "idea" is often left in the dust many times over as the business morph into something that the market likes, and those ideas can come from anywhere -- a person explaining it, an unrelated sign, a moment of frustration, whatever. That spark is like a drop in the ocean of execution. It's almost, but not quite worthless. It's worth a pat on the back, nothing else.
wmeredith 17y ago
A spark is nothing compared to a fire, but the fire is nothing without a spark.
- ALee 17y ago
  A necessary, but not sufficient condition to a successful startup.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
hymanroth 17y ago
The whole idea/execution riff is reductionist. Some ideas are more or less obvious. Twitter is a great example: there was basically no idea, it was all execution and marketing. But other ideas are huge. Larry and Sergey's idea of how to index the web was genuinely novel. The best team in the world could have executed on pre-Google search tech and would have got nowhere. It all depends on the idea: some are just so much better than others...
- amichail 17y ago
  Twitter's idea is not obvious. Why would restricting blog entries to 140 characters result in a new and very interesting phenomenon? Larry and Sergey's PageRank isn't a new application level idea (as search engines already existed) but rather a better implementation of an existing application level idea.
  - hymanroth 17y ago
    Twitter's key insight was to extend a blogging platform to mobile phones (hence the 140 limit). It was definitely innovative and smart, but not the kind of thing they give out Nobel prizes for. I think the Google boys' idea went much deeper, and their indexing methods were completely novel at the time, hence much more relevant results.
    - amichail 17y ago
      Maybe they didn't foresee what this would do if they were concerned mostly about mobile phones at the time. Perhaps you could say that twitter is an accidental success that is much more interesting than the original vision.
    - raphar 17y ago
      Google's way of indexing was not novel at the time. There were others that used the same methods. Their execution on the other hand was flawless.
      - 17y ago
amichail 17y ago
It is not in the self-interest of a university, company, or a VC to value ideas publicly although they may do so privately. Companies want you to implement things based on ideas that are not your own. So it is in their self-interest to tell you that ideas are not important. A university education is all about teaching students to implement stuff because: (1) this is what companies want; and (2) it is easier to do so than to try to get students to come up with compelling ideas. Finally, VCs fund very small companies and it makes sense for them to worry about whether a small team is capable of great execution. No matter how good the founders' idea, VCs don't want to lose on their investments.
dpnewman 17y ago
Is there such a thing as execution without ideas ... about execution? A lot of the genius of a great tech is stuff that isn't really visible. I don't mean code, I mean subtle choices about how to create the experience that excites users, or how to build architecture on the idea such that it can have a platform play later. Etc. So the spark is definitely to be recognized, yet the daily building of something is no less requiring of innovation or "genius". Did I just restate and reword the obvious? Did I execute? Eh.
donaldc 17y ago
This somewhat reminds me of the nature vs. nurture argument. It's a false dichotomy. Also, at least as important as the idea itself, is the ability to recognize a good idea. Most people who try have plenty of ideas, and most of these ideas just aren't that good.
mgunes 17y ago
"That's all very well in practice, but will it ever work in theory?" -- G. R. Hill III
pclark 17y ago
never got tweetmeme.
rajat 17y ago
It's not that a particular idea does not have any value; it's that without proper execution, it does not realize its potential value. In my career in computers, I have come across people with great ideas a few times, who have done nothing with that idea (primarily because they wouldn't leave their safe jobs), only to see it become insanely successful when someone else, who had the same idea independently, executed on it. So the idea obviously had value, but only because the potential was realized with the execution.

19 points by vaksel 17y ago

bradgessler 17y ago

They're both equally as important; without one you can't sustain the other.

ryanwaggoner 17y ago
They're most definitely not equally important. There are far more examples of successful businesses built on the backs of mediocre ideas but with great execution than there are of ones built on the back of great ideas with mediocre execution. Also, your comment smacks of wanting to bitch about something because this is a TechCrunch story...did you even read it? The article is about the backstory of Tweetmeme and the bigger question of compensation for someone who was involved in the early idea of a startup, but wasn't there for the execution and risk-taking that came later.
- bradgessler 17y ago
  If you have awesome execution over a long period of time without new ideas your product/service/whatever will stagnate. On the flip-side if you only have good ideas with poor execution nothing will get off the ground. Both are equally as important from my point-of-view and shouldn't be viewed as zero-sum. And no, I read the headline and skimmed the article.
  - ryanwaggoner 17y ago
    Great execution without new ideas over a long period of time describes a large portion of the Fortune 1000. Some industries are not driven by innovation.
    - bradgessler 17y ago
      I disagree. Most Fortune 1000 companies innovate indirectly in their products or services. You need "good ideas" to develop, manufacture, and distribute goods globally. That's why I don't look at "good ideas" and execution separately; ultimately you need good ideas to feed into the execution of a product.
- adharmad 17y ago
  "They're most definitely not equally important. There are far more examples of successful businesses built on the backs of mediocre ideas but with great execution than there are of ones built on the back of great ideas with mediocre execution." That may be because genuinely new ideas are hard to come by today. There is also a lot of risk associated with them. Execution, although it has its pitfalls, largely depends on timing and effort.

pmichaud 17y ago

He's right about the idea being the launch pad, but it's more like the first step up an uncharted mountain. The "idea" is often left in the dust many times over as the business morph into something that the market likes, and those ideas can come from anywhere -- a person explaining it, an unrelated sign, a moment of frustration, whatever. That spark is like a drop in the ocean of execution. It's almost, but not quite worthless. It's worth a pat on the back, nothing else.

wmeredith 17y ago

A spark is nothing compared to a fire, but the fire is nothing without a spark.

ALee 17y ago
A necessary, but not sufficient condition to a successful startup.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

hymanroth 17y ago

The whole idea/execution riff is reductionist. Some ideas are more or less obvious. Twitter is a great example: there was basically no idea, it was all execution and marketing. But other ideas are huge. Larry and Sergey's idea of how to index the web was genuinely novel. The best team in the world could have executed on pre-Google search tech and would have got nowhere. It all depends on the idea: some are just so much better than others...

amichail 17y ago
Twitter's idea is not obvious. Why would restricting blog entries to 140 characters result in a new and very interesting phenomenon? Larry and Sergey's PageRank isn't a new application level idea (as search engines already existed) but rather a better implementation of an existing application level idea.
- hymanroth 17y ago
  Twitter's key insight was to extend a blogging platform to mobile phones (hence the 140 limit). It was definitely innovative and smart, but not the kind of thing they give out Nobel prizes for. I think the Google boys' idea went much deeper, and their indexing methods were completely novel at the time, hence much more relevant results.
  - amichail 17y ago
    Maybe they didn't foresee what this would do if they were concerned mostly about mobile phones at the time. Perhaps you could say that twitter is an accidental success that is much more interesting than the original vision.
  - raphar 17y ago
    Google's way of indexing was not novel at the time. There were others that used the same methods. Their execution on the other hand was flawless.
    - 17y ago

amichail 17y ago

It is not in the self-interest of a university, company, or a VC to value ideas publicly although they may do so privately. Companies want you to implement things based on ideas that are not your own. So it is in their self-interest to tell you that ideas are not important. A university education is all about teaching students to implement stuff because: (1) this is what companies want; and (2) it is easier to do so than to try to get students to come up with compelling ideas. Finally, VCs fund very small companies and it makes sense for them to worry about whether a small team is capable of great execution. No matter how good the founders' idea, VCs don't want to lose on their investments.

dpnewman 17y ago

Is there such a thing as execution without ideas ... about execution? A lot of the genius of a great tech is stuff that isn't really visible. I don't mean code, I mean subtle choices about how to create the experience that excites users, or how to build architecture on the idea such that it can have a platform play later. Etc. So the spark is definitely to be recognized, yet the daily building of something is no less requiring of innovation or "genius". Did I just restate and reword the obvious? Did I execute? Eh.

donaldc 17y ago

This somewhat reminds me of the nature vs. nurture argument. It's a false dichotomy. Also, at least as important as the idea itself, is the ability to recognize a good idea. Most people who try have plenty of ideas, and most of these ideas just aren't that good.

mgunes 17y ago

"That's all very well in practice, but will it ever work in theory?" -- G. R. Hill III

pclark 17y ago

never got tweetmeme.

rajat 17y ago

It's not that a particular idea does not have any value; it's that without proper execution, it does not realize its potential value. In my career in computers, I have come across people with great ideas a few times, who have done nothing with that idea (primarily because they wouldn't leave their safe jobs), only to see it become insanely successful when someone else, who had the same idea independently, executed on it. So the idea obviously had value, but only because the potential was realized with the execution.