

Ask YC: Pitching your ideas here on YC news a good idea? - khangtoh

I hope to get some feedback on an idea that's keeping me awake at night but it's just an idea now, no code, no prototype nothing but just an url and name.<p>So my question is - would it be ok to pitch my idea here and get some feedback and just to know that I'm not alone. I'm sure you have heard that pitching your idea to family and friends but this idea of mine needs feedback from hackers
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run4yourlives
You'd be better off turning the idea into a prototype and asking for advice
then. The community here seems pretty good every time a new site is reviewed.

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khangtoh
Just to give more context, this idea is a social community site, think YC news
but its not the same. I know that I would love that such a site exists but I
want to know that I'm not alone without having to spend time knocking out a
prototype.

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run4yourlives
Ah, I get it. You want someone here to build it for you don't you?

Well, I think you're going to be disappointed.

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tstegart
I'm going to go with find some hacker friends, and you solve the problem.

Ok, that was facetious. :) But still, I'm sure if you look you can find some
hacker friends you trust, not only to not rip off your idea, but also to give
you some pretty good feedback. Maybe some other entrepreneurs you know, a
college professor, etc.

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khangtoh
but again the fear of someone copying my idea by posting on a public forum
creeps in.. ;(

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nostrademons
I'm reading a good book at the moment - _Growing a Business_ by Paul Hawken.
He has this to say about ideas:

"The idea itself is just the tip of the iceberg. The iceberg is your life.
Don't worry about anyone stealing your idea, because they can't steal your
life."

That's resonated a lot with my experience so far. I've had to make literally
_hundreds_ of decisions, from tiny software architecture ones to big ones like
who are we serving and what will our product let people do. I suspect that in
mature businesses, that'll grow into thousands or tens of thousands. Each one
is an expression of who you are as a founder. Even if you wrote down
everything you know about your business and handed it to a competitor, they
wouldn't be able to replicate what you're doing, because of all the unspoken
assumptions behind your decision-making.

This is perhaps why it's so hard to manage employees before you've achieved
product-market fit. (I worked as an employee in two other startups, both
before product-market fit, before starting my own.) If your competitors don't
get it, there's no reason your employees will be able to either, unless you
can _show_ them what your doing and how it impacts people's lives.

