Excellent point. The implementation is the hard part. Furthermore, it is very hard to actually know which ideas are good until implemented, and even with trul

Excellent point. The implementation is the hard part. Furthermore, it is very hard to actually know which ideas are good until implemented, and even with truly great ideas a bad implementation will destroy them while a good implementation can make a mediocre idea successful. I hesitate to suggest this, but if the ideas are truly original and tie into some concrete product or business product then you could try patenting them. Doing this will require you to invest some real time and money, but nowhere near as much as implementation. That patent would then have some value to a startup looking to implement an idea similar to that so you would be bringing something to the table if trying to join that startup or you could try selling it outright to the startup. I certainly would never recommend becoming a patent troll, but holding a relevant patent does give you something to bring to the table while you work out a niche for yourself with the founders (perhaps in marketing and fund raising or handling some of the other business aspects or else learning enough to help with implementation.) If nothing else, I have heard of people using patents as resume bullets for more conventional jobs.