

Don't love your idea. Hate it. - Aarvay
http://aarvay.in/2012/02/28/dont-love-your-idea-hate-it.html

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joelg87
I think this is a great point. Hate is a strong word, I'm not sure I would
advise hating your idea. You've got to love what you're doing, right? But love
the process, not the idea.

What I think may be best is to be endlessly curious about whether you should
love or hate your idea. I think that will lead to a search for whether others
love or hate the idea, which is the way to validate it.

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Aarvay
Joel, I agree. Hate is a strong word. I just used it so that people get what I
am trying to tell. I think you have a great thought here. It makes much sense
:)

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instakill
Hate is not the right word. In fact '$verb it' isn't the right phrase. Rather,
the phrase should be: think of your idea as an adversary, a villain or arch
enemy that you need to defeat. That you need to keep working at to conquer.
You don't love or hate arch enemies, but because they exist and cause [you]
much distress, you'll end up looking like a hero when you do defeat it.
Walking away is not an option. Either you win, and defeat the villain, or you
die (or, analogously, rather learn from your mistakes) because if you walk
away, the villain will never stop [haunting your mind with what-ifs]. Emotion
is not an option, you have to be Batman; stoic, rational, determined.

* disclaimer, sometimes I use very strange metaphors.

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Aarvay
It's not the right the word. Agreed. But I never said give up. The whole point
was to tell, don't have any personal attachment with ideas. I used that word
to make people understand what I am trying to say :)

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stupandaus
It's a delicate balance. You need to be be emotionally detached enough to not
let your decisions be affected. However, you also need to know how to be
passionate about your project for any potential investors or colleagues to
drive the project to succeed.

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agj
I would definitely agree that to progress with any endeavor -- entrepreneurial
or creative -- requires critical analysis of your work and yourself. If you
are not focusing on your flaws, then you are likely skipping steps necessary
for improvement.

Though, I often find myself at the opposite end of this spectrum. I tend to
focus foremost on the flaws in my work, and because of this, I do hate much of
my own work and I have dissuaded myself from any further attempts. I would say
a certain degree of persistence is equally as important as maintaining a
critical point of view.

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tar
I like this idea. Sometimes we start thinking our idea is so wonderful that we
start disregarding the obvious problems associated with it.

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jt2190
William Faulkner said: "In writing, you must kill all your darlings."

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verelo
He also said "Everything goes by the board: honor, pride, decency to get the
book written."

Sounds like a driven person to me!

I completely agree with what this article is saying. A lot of people pickup an
idea, run for a while...and beat it to death while it continues to fail. The
term "Fail fast" has been over stated a bit recently, but at the same time
there's a lot in it...if something isn't working or you cant get what you
wanted out of trying to validate it, move on.

Lots of people who have been in failed start-ups have gone on to be massive
successes...if they didn't have the ability to recognize their success and
pickup something new, they would have never made it. Failure is just another
word for learning...so yep, if it doesn't work hate it and start something
that you love.

The tricky part is knowing when to hate it, to borrow from the quote book
again...

"The problem with the Internet startup craze isn't that too many people are
starting companies; it's that too many people aren't sticking with it. "

\- Steve jobs

