

Ask HN: Any room in the startup world for an ideas man? - netconnect

Is there any place in the world of startups and online businesses for an ideas man? I don't just mean scribbles on napkins, I mean well thought out and researched plans for online services, bundled with charismatic presentations and an analysis of the current market.<p>I am currently working on the skills I need to bring these ideas to life, but being realistic it will probably be some time before I can attempt even the most simple of them, with or without a partner.<p>Sitting on my laptop are about 15 of these ideas (plans, whatever you would like to call them), each one is the product of a lot of work and the source of much pride. It would upset me to see even one of these ideas, independently thought of by someone else, come to life as a profitable business. I ask you guys, what should I do with them? Let people read them on some sort of website? Try to market them to someone with the skills and resources to bring them into the world?<p>Honestly, is there anything I can do with them?
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jacquesm
Sure there is a place for that ! Go to a bank, borrow the $ or mortgage your
house, then hire a team to build one of your plans, make it big and use the
proceeds to execute the rest of your plans.

That's how everybody else does it. Other than that ideas are two a penny,
plans are great but executing them is where the work is and where the money is
made. You can have all of my 'good' ideas for free... I value them at exactly
$0, which is as good as any other idea/plan.

By the time that you can prove that an idea has legs it should not be too hard
to get it funded. Once you've successfully done one next ideas are easier.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
_"plans are great but executing them is where the work is [...]"_ True enough,
but some people are good at execution and some people are good at ideas.
During the execution phase you're going to need more ideas, probably, to get
past your MVP and on to a fully rounded product. Reminds me of the postings
the other on Word of Goo - the idea was simple, implementing it was quite hard
but additional ideas were added all along the way: things that transformed the
product.

Ideas possibly are ten-a-penny, good ideas ...? Great ideas restricted to a
specific market segment, they've got to be even more rare. PageRank was a good
idea, sure without implementation it's nothing, without the idea there's no
implementation though.

~~~
jacquesm
Yes, but just about everybody has ideas. I can't imagine that those that are
good at execution do not have ideas.

The original 'apple' was an idea that many had at the time, two guys with the
werewithal to go and execute that idea made it big. I'm sure that in the HCC
of the time there were 100's if not 1000's of people that had the idea of a
(cheap) computer for everybody.

People that have 'ideas' need to be aware of several really important things:

\- everybody has ideas, pretty much all the time

\- your idea is most likely not even original ("hey, I thought of that long
ago!", yes, so?)

\- it might be a great idea but it may never fly, to ask others to risk all to
implement your idea for a substantial portion of equity while you risk nothing
is out of balance.

\- those people that 'had ideas' and made it big invariably were also good at
execution.

People that 'just have ideas' usually end up in advertising or marketing where
'brain storm sessions' are their way of minting their idea motor, after all,
there you get a salary for just having ideas.

The OP asked if there was room in a startup for an idea guy, the answer is
really I don't think so, a startup needs one good idea, then execute it
properly the rest is implentation. (Ebay : let's put an auction on the web,
YouTube : Let's make it easy to post videos, facebook : let's do 'classmates'
but much better). After that the execution takes over, that sort of idea you
only need one of to have a viable business.

Sure, during the 'execution' phase you'll need more ideas, but those are
usually not going to fundamentally change the nature of the business, unless
the original idea wasn't very good...

In an incubator though, there is a place for an idea man. That's where there
is added value, also if you're good at ideas you may be good at shooting down
other peoples ideas before resources are wasted.

~~~
netconnect
Thanks for the honest response(s). What is this incubator you mentioned? Could
you tell me more or link to something that does?

~~~
jacquesm
Well, news.ycombinator.com is the property of exactly such an institution but
there are plenty more out there.

Seed capital funds are another possible avenue.

~~~
netconnect
After a bit of a search around I understand this all much better. Not to
mention have a sudden thirst to get involved with that kind of organisation.

I guess I will just release my little plans on HN and enjoy the feedback!
Would love suggestions for other places to use my creativity for something
worthwhile (for me or a community).

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riffer
Another element to consider is that sometimes very detailed, thought-out plans
are often actually less valuable than tentative, raw ideas. Elaborate plans
are brittle because there are many dependencies interwoven into them. Another
way of putting that is that there are a lot of implicit assumptions about how
the final system will work. But the reality is that there are things that will
be unanticipated developments during the actual construction. Some of these
will be things that in hindsight should have been anticipated, and others will
be things that it really isn't possible to anticipate. In other words, we only
really learn what the plan should look like by building.

Building gives us crucial elements of the plan. But there is another essential
piece as well. And that is that one person can only figure out so much of how
something complicated enough to be valuable should work. This is part of why
YC wants multiple co-founders rather than single founders. It's also where you
want to get feedback loops working in your favor. So much of life is about
feedback loops, whether it is body temperature, or social confidence, or
addictive dependencies. You want to get feedback from other people, and the
way to do it isn't to show them your ideas, it's to show them the built out
manifestation of your ideas, for exactly the reasons in the paragraph above.

One of the many things that makes this startup thing interesting is that for
500 years, specialization has been a trend. Since you only have a few guys in
a startup ...

Finally, in terms of working on the skills, why not work on skills by trying
to build a straight-forward aspect of one of the simpler ideas? And if this
isn't possible because of the nature of the ideas, then the ideas need to
evolve to make this possible.

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sidmitra
>Try to market them to someone with the skills and resources to bring them
into the world?

It really isn't the idea, but the execution that's essential.

There have been lots of ideas, which i thought were stupid and too simple to
be profitable at that time. But i've seen them grow really popular and
profitable.

So i guess you should find someone to work with you on those ideas, and hope
for the best. It may turn out that some those ideas become successful, but
there's a higher chance that none of them do.

Discuss those ideas on HN, and i'm sure you'll get lots of useful feedback.

~~~
ErrantX
But many of those ideas are half baked :D it sounds like this guy has got some
serious plans/ideas laid down.

That kind of stuff can go far in the right hands.

@OP: How protective are you over the ideas? Posting them to HN will probably
find someone to build them. The risk being you might be bypassed in that
process. Is there a way to give your knowledge / plan enough value that a
would be "builder" wants to work with you?

~~~
netconnect
Thats really my problem isn't it - I bring nothing to the table once someone
has the plans. I'm a little protective, but I could cope with letting one or
two go I suppose. I have only really shared them with non-tech people or my
tech friends that are far too lazy or otherwise oriented to ever do anything
with them.

~~~
sidmitra
"I have only really shared them with non-tech people or my tech friends that
are far too lazy or otherwise oriented to ever do anything with them."

I guess your concern is valid. But, most people are that way, the ones that
really are motivated enough to complete a project or build a startup already
have their hands full with ideas of their own.

If you have researched your product and have a definite vision of it, then
that's what you bring to the table. A stolen idea would look, well.... stolen!

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voidmain
Publish at least some of them, so others can at least evaluate whether you
have _good_ ideas.

You are never going to find anyone who will "buy" business ideas. All the
people saying that execution is what matters are right. But the _ability_ to
generate good ideas and plans is not unrelated to ability to execute! If your
work impresses, you might find a co-founder or an opportunity that will put
you on the path to being able to do what you want.

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davidw
The problem is that ideas are "non-excludable goods":

<http://journal.dedasys.com/2007/04/26/ideas-are-worthless>

