

You Dont Need a Good Idea To Start a Great Company - eladgil
http://blog.eladgil.com/2011/01/you-dont-need-good-idea-to-start-great.html

======
bretthopper
JERRY: So you're saying, I go in to YC, and tell them I got this idea for a
startup about nothing.

GEORGE: We go into YC.

JERRY: "We"? Since when are you a hacker?

GEORGE: (Scoffs) Hacker. We're talking about a startup.

JERRY: You want to go with me to YC?

GEORGE: Yeah. I think we really go something here.

JERRY: What do we got?

GEORGE: An idea.

JERRY: What idea?

GEORGE: An idea for the startup.

JERRY: I still don't know what the idea is.

GEORGE: It's about nothing.

JERRY: Right.

GEORGE: Everybody's doing something, we'll do nothing.

JERRY: So, we go into YC, we tell them we've got an idea for a startup about
nothing.

GEORGE: Exactly.

JERRY: They say, "What's your startup about?" I say, "Nothing."

GEORGE: There you go.

(A moment passes)

JERRY: (Nodding) I think you may have something there.

~~~
j18490
Straw man argument.

'You don't need a good idea' != 'You don't need an idea'

~~~
bretthopper
You're taking this too seriously.

------
revorad
If you're going to talk of great companies, you can't leave out the two
juggernauts of our time.

Neither Google nor Facebook started as a company.

Both search and social networks were written off as markets when the two
current leaders entered the space.

I don't want to invoke another semantic wrestling championship between
execution and ideas, but you have to give credit to Facebook for realising
that social networks are not just about dating. It was their idea of exactly
replicating offline social relationships on the web, executed to near
perfection that made them successful. Great ideas are a combination of many
small seemingly trivial good ideas. They do matter, otherwise one wouldn't
know what to execute.

I'm afraid this article does rather poorly on the swombat-o-meter -
[http://swombat.com/2011/1/20/how-to-write-good-startup-
advic...](http://swombat.com/2011/1/20/how-to-write-good-startup-advice-
articles)

~~~
eladgil
I agree re: Facebook and Google. But to your point, both Facebook and Google
could have been seen as bad ideas since, as you state: >Both search and social
networks were written off as markets when the two current leaders entered the
space.

The point of this post is not "Are good ideas bad for a startup". Obviously
good ideas are much better then bad ones, and great ones are much better then
good ones.

The point of the post is "don't think you need the most amazing idea ever to
start something. it is more important to start something and learn what the
great idea is along the way".

~~~
revorad
Sorry, this topic is bound to lead to a semantic merry-go-round!

Facebook and Google are examples of great ideas executed well creating huge
markets, which did not exist when they set out. So how would have their
founders fared if they chose to focus on a great market at the start? We would
have yet another portal with banner advertising and a dating site.

I agree with the point of the post you mention here, but your post doesn't
really support that.

Your advice is to focus on a great market. One of the hottest markets right
now seems to be photo sharing. But I highly doubt the next great company will
come out of there.

Can you give me an example of a great market today?

~~~
eladgil
:) Thanks for the points above.

"Great market" /= "hot market"

Great market to my mind is a market that has a lot of users who will use your
product (and better yet, you can make money off of them using your product).
Maybe I will write a post on how to identify a great market, as that is a
pretty big topic. But one example is often markets where user behavior is
fundamentally shifting, or where there is a sudden change (e.g. adoption of
truly smart phones) leading to opportunity.

I think certain areas in ecommerce are a good example today of changes in user
behavior and business model leading to high growth companies (Gilt Group was
just the beginning, and some really cool companies are getting started today
around fashion/women's goods online).

~~~
revorad
_a market that has a lot of users who will use your product_

Photo sharing fits the bill just right. Facebook has shown you can also make
money off it.

Ecommerce is always a great market, but it's too vague because it's just
commerce through a new medium. I'd prefer and love to read blog posts
discussing specific ideas. Take that as reader feedback :-P

Did you see this Mixergy interview with the founder of Gemvara?
<http://mixergy.com/matt-lauzon-gemvara-interview/>

It is one of the most innovative ideas I've come across recently, and
apparently executed very well too.

~~~
eladgil
Thanks for the feedback.

To be honest I didn't want to name specific markets as I didn't want to create
too much interest in areas where friends of mine are working. I didnt want to
add attention and make it more crowded. :)

~~~
revorad
Haha that made me chuckle.

"It is all about execution. Even if you have a great idea - 5 other people
will have it at the same time."

Just quoting a blog post...

~~~
eladgil
Yup, GroupOn out executed everyone and is winning. But their getting a high
profile has also hurt them by creating 1001 competitors.

------
jacquesm
You don't even need an idea at all. All you need is to find a crossroads where
two fields intersect and that has not been discovered by anybody else. Those
crossroads are discovered, not invented and every time a new field is made by
someone with a new idea a thousand new crossroads instantly spring up.

Remember when 'on the internet' was the only thing changed in all those patent
applications compared to what was going on before then? Suddenly appending 'on
the internet' to something made it worth investigating. New fields open up all
the time, if you're observing new findings in popular science it's very hard
to not see opportunities enough for several lifetimes to scroll by in a single
sitting of reading. Whether they're worth pursuing is another thing but the
opportunities are there for the taking, no need to have a good idea or any at
all to get off the ground.

Another way to start a great company that is pretty effective is to take an
idea that already exists and simply do a better job of it.

------
rradu
Problem is that it's hard to drop a steady job and be motivated about an idea
you know isn't very good.

You need to have an idea that you can believe has a chance of being
successful.

~~~
scotch_drinker
Conversely, dropping a steady job for a crappy idea might be just the kind of
motivation you might need to become successful. Full disclosure: I'm trying to
convince myself of this every single morning.

~~~
jayliew
Burn the boats: [http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/06/andreessen-media-burn-
boats...](http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/06/andreessen-media-burn-boats/)

disclosure: I burned my boat

~~~
ericmsimons
"disclosure: I burned my boat"

made me laugh :) I burned mine too!

~~~
jayliew
I'd drop you an email to say hi but your HN profile is empty :)

~~~
ericmsimons
ericsimons@es40.net - thanks for reminding me to update that!

------
ericmsimons
Hmm...I agree to disagree. I think the best companies start with an idea. It
may not be a product idea, but a goal (ie: let's bridge the gap between
technology and social = facebook).

The best products aren't slapped together using existing solutions. They are
built from the ground up to solve a problem. If your company is building a
solution to solve a specific problem, you are a great company.

------
bowmande
I would think you don't need a great idea to have a great company, but you
need an idea that is worth something.

------
m0th87
The last time I saw a post like this on HN, I replied that both idea and
execution are important, with a contrived example. The creativity of the
responses made me rethink my stance.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1404428>

------
thesash
It's all about getting the right people on the bus:
[http://www.jimcollins.com/article_topics/articles/good-to-
gr...](http://www.jimcollins.com/article_topics/articles/good-to-great.html).

------
Charuru
It's true some successful company are the results of serious pivots. But I bet
some 80% of them are the result of an initial good idea.

IMO you shouldn't build a company from a bad idea, but you can in your spare
time try to validate an idea you're uncertain about. But don't quit your job
at Google.

~~~
eladgil
Support from Fred Wilson's blog that most of his successful outcomes (success
defined as "exit) were pivots:

"Of the 26 companies that I consider realized or effectively realized in my
personal track record, 17 of them made complete transformations or partial
transformations of their businesses between the time we invested and the time
we sold. That means there a 2/3 chance you’ll have to significantly reinvent
your business between the time you take a venture capital investment and when
you exit your business."

Source: <http://unionsquareventures.com/2007/11/why-early-stage.php>

~~~
Charuru
Are you sure we're talking about the same "transformation"? Also that 17 lumps
major and minor transformations together...

For example if someone starts a dating site but later transforms into a
general social network, I would call that a complete transformation.

However if you start out making a ruby IDE but later realizes that real money
is in MMORPGs or whatever, well you might have as well as waited.

~~~
dinedal
Does it matter? I think the point is that (Great People) + (Profitable Idea) =
(Success)

Consider: The variant of (Poor People) + (Profitable Idea) = (50/50 Success)
and the variant of (Great People) + (Unprofitable Idea) = (Failure). If (Great
People) it is far easier to get (Profitable Idea) then to change (Poor People)
to (Great People).

To use your example, if you're making a Ruby IDE and no one pays you, you will
never be profitable. If you make a Greate Ruby IDE and no one pays you, you
will never be profitable. Discovering that MMORPG's are more profitable one
day, you build one, and people pay you, you might be profitable. You could
consider the time you spent on your Ruby IDE a waste, or you could consider
that you've learned something about software development as a business. It is
far easier to change the idea then the people.

~~~
Charuru
But that's implying that working at Google won't be as rewarding. There's a
lot of pressure to execute and iterate and so on when you're doing a startup.
People sometimes forget to sit down and relax. Being in a less risky, less
stressful position at Google can give you the important insights you need when
you really start your business.

I also submit that it'll be easier to quit Google when you've discovered your
home run idea than to change your entire business.

~~~
harryh
"Being in a less risky, less stressful position at Google can give you the
important insights you need when you really start your business."

You could not be more wrong on this point. Being at google is a recipe for
complacency. Quitting your job is incentive to actually figure out how to
build something good. Because it's do that or fail.

~~~
Psyonic
If this is so, why are there so many startups started by ex-Googlers?

------
sabat
The real point this guy has is: don't wait for the best idea possible -- just
pick something that's promising and start. You probably won't end up doing
what you start with anyway, but it's better than just spinning your wheels
waiting for inspiration.

------
umeshkacha
I think link is down for this article. Could you please check?

