

Disregard ideas, acquire assets - shalmanese
http://www.quora.com/Xianhang-Zhang/Disregard-ideas-acquire-assets

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thetrumanshow
Yes. So, this is why you should never trashcan your projects. Keep them alive
and keep iterating on them (track them with analytics). Also, keep trying new
things. If over time the number of people using them is > 0 (and growing,
albeit slowly), then they are probably assets.

If you are less aimless and want to get strategic, make sure all of the
projects center around some addressable market for which you can eventually
take a shot at building a genuine product.

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travisglines
While I agree that leveraging intangible assets can be extremely powerful in
creating success for web startups, very few people have such an asset to
leverage. Those that do are probably looking to enjoy life a little bit more
and may turn into angel investors or are looking to get out of the bipolar
startup lifestyle.

How does one build an asset like this? By creating a web startup from scratch.

So yes if you happen to be one of the lucky few that have a nice asset like
that, do the obvious thing you would have done anyways and leverage it.
Otherwise join the rest of the crowd building one of the assets from the
ground up with solid execution and a decent idea.

~~~
shalmanese
Creating a web startup is a legitimate way of gaining assets but also one of
the more risky ways of doing this. The point, which may not have been
completely conveyed is that building assets is significantly easier & less
risky than starting startups.

Go to school, learn something, work at interesting companies, take on
responsibilities, be helpful to people, build up a network, have interesting
conversations, be unique.

At some point, you'll have enough assets that a startup will just fall out of
all of this diligent work.

~~~
travisglines
I can certainly see the value of building up a following and leveraging that
towards your startup. (plenty guilty of that myself)

It seems like all the extra time you would spend by going above and beyond to
get a following/skills could be spent (with the same risk) doing a really cool
startup on the side.

~~~
shalmanese
"a following" is just one type of asset. Ben Newhouse, who I didn't mention in
my post leveraged his asset of building Yelp Monocle (as an intern!) into
Bubbli (<http://bubbli.co/intro/>). It's undoubtably true that Bubbli could
not have been built though, without leveraging Ben's asset. A different
startup could have been built that might look vaguely similar from the outside
but it wouldn't have been Bubbli.

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newhouseb
Arriving in late via a google search, but yes, definitely. Name dropping
Monocle accounts for instant credibility with nearly anyone - which is
awesome, but at the same time kind of weird, because I'm the same person I was
before I backed into doing Monocle.

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guelo
I always crack up when the extremely lucky few that were able to gain
notoriety and turn it into success give out the advice that the secret to
success is notoriety. "You should become a blogger and then gain 100s of
thousands of followers then you can be successful just like me!".

Reminds me of the old get-rich quick schemes that were "start a get-rich quick
scheme and sell this advice, just like me!"

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jbigelow
"I'm talking about more intangible assets like skills, reputation,
relationships, attention & fame."

When you separate reputation from attention & fame is there any real value
there, at least in the context of startups? I get reputation as it relates to
something like stackoverflow, but the attention & fame may not be as great an
asset as the author seems to think. When I think of fame & attention without
reputation I think of Lindsay Lohan and the cast of Jersey Shore. He could be
talking about attention & fame like that that color.com received with their
$41 million in funding but that is an extreme outlier and a lot of the
community views it more as infamy.

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Sakes
I think you are getting lost in the details. He is not saying that anyone of
these things is a silver bullet. He is saying increase your value in 2, 3 or
more of these categories, and you will increase your chances for success.

He is not even saying this is a complete list of intangible assets. These are
just some examples of ways to get you closer to the finish line.

~~~
shalmanese
I would say "increase your chance of success" is less accurate than "open up
new spaces in which you can be successful".

But, otherwise, yes, I agree with you.

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mikeryan
Great ideas are your best assets.

~~~
raintrees
Only when executed/attempted.

~~~
cabalamat
Ability to execute well is your most important asset.

And confidence to try is the second most important: if you try you might not
succeed, but if you don't try you definitely won't succeed.

