

Co-Founders: Your Idea is Worthless. Show Your Chops - codypo
http://go-to-hellman.blogspot.com/2011/02/co-founders-your-idea-is-worthless-show.html

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anthonycerra
This article is too long for what it delivers. Most of it is a derivative of
what all the talking heads say: "Ideas are meaningless. Execution is
everything".

The value of this article can be boiled down to the following sentence. If
you're not a technical co-founder be prepared to show off your sales and
marketing chops before you start looking for one.

~~~
MatthewDP
The article brings a valid point. If you're a wanna-be entrepreneur and all
you have an idea, that's not nearly enough.

~~~
Stormbringer
The article is making a valid point, but there is an equally valid counter-
point that I think is being obscured. Many technical co-founders expect that
coding is the entirety of what they will do, hence the shopping list of a non-
technical co-founder who will do 'everything else'/'all the boring bits'.

If the only thing you - as a technical person - are bringing to the founders
table is programming skills, then you're at the wrong table. Get yo bitch ass
over to the 'low digit employee number queue'.

You might be one of the first employees, but you're not co-founder material.
Technical people who only bring coding skills are just as worthless as non-
technical people who only bring an idea.

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akg_67
If Ideas are meaningless, then why the first question everyone asks "What is
the idea you pursuing?"

~~~
sdrinf
The idea, and more importantly, the presentation thereof -sales pitch- usually
answers by itself a whole range of questions, including: target market &
opportunity, positioning, ballpark estimate of market size, competitive
advantage; and also, more important co-founding qualities: sales, and
marketing quality of the pitcher, and a ballpark estimation on the "level of
entrepreneurship" he is.

This weeds out 99% of the idea-guys in 2 sentences. They get their obligatory
nod, smile, ask a fun poke question, or two, pretend not to know anything
about computer voodoo, then proceed striking up a conversation with a more
interesting fellow.

IFF they pass this, then, and only then, we can proceed to poking more in-
depth questions, and sizing up eachother. Otherwise, it's a waste of both of
our time.

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kjr
Ideas are worthless. Great Ideas are worth their weight in gold.

~~~
idiopathic
People who say ideas are worthless have never had a worthwhile idea.

~~~
Stormbringer
Dude, did you even read his entire one line post, or did you just rush
straight into 'witty put down mode'?

Edit: also - people who voted this guy up - what the [redacted] is wrong with
you? Reading comprehension: it's not that hard.

~~~
idiopathic
His one-liner was "ideas are worthless", and "great ideas are worth their
weight in gold". I interpreted the latter as "great ideas are worth zero".

So unless I misinterpreted the last part, his comment was the first with witty
put downs.

Good ideas are valuble and worthwhile. And it may take many years of hard work
to come up with them. This is why the patent system was created: to allow
people who come up with these ideas to have them valued as worthwhile, and
compensated as such.

I understand there are some people who just have an idea that is shallow, and
then do nothing with it. But the original comment said _all_ ideas were
worthless.

~~~
Stormbringer
Worth their weight in gold is a common way of saying that something is very
valuable.

Are you an Aspie? You're being far too clever/literal, reading too much into
his statement with your weight of a great idea = 0 therefore worth = 0
calculation.

The natural and much easier interpretation of what he wrote is that good ideas
are common as muck, whereas great ideas are of great worth.

You really have to go through some quite unnatural contortions to arrive at
the conclusion you did; that he said all ideas are worthless.

BUT

You may be right, he may have been trying to have some subtle play with words.
If so, I apologise. However, it isn't the way his statement would normally be
read.

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gluejar
I'm glad that everyone objecting that ideas are NOT worthless are so
appreciative of irony.

There's a postscript to the article. "JT" actually found his technical co-
founder. The lesson to take away from this is that if you want to find a
technical co-founder, you have to sell yourself more than you have to sell
your idea.

------
sportsTAKES
I don't think the question is about non-technical business people 'showing
chops...'

This is about smart people - there are brilliant business people and there are
brilliant hackers.

They don't need to worry about showing chops (whatever that means) - they'll
worry about ideas and creating greatness one way or another.

------
ojbyrne
I've come to hate the usage of the word "chops," outside of the music
industry.

~~~
phillco
And, perhaps, food.

~~~
alanstorm
And lumberjack competitions.

~~~
MrFlibble
Don't forget sideburns.

