
Your Idea Is Worthless.  Worry about finding smart nerds. - terrencelui
https://plus.google.com/110581693083408452344/posts/cMCwLee5Wn9
======
eggbrain
I think the author doesn't go far enough in his post.

Yes, ideas are worthless. But finding "smart nerds" is an almost fruitless
endeavor as well. It's not that they don't exist, but they are so sought
after, and are doing so many projects many times, that unless they are a great
friend of yours, they will politely listen to your idea and then say they
don't have time for you.

Also, "Smart Nerds", unless they are completely oblivious, can instantly
disseminate what value you bring to the project. Did you just think up the
idea, yet want an equal split of the company with the "smart nerd" who will
actually bring the idea into fruition? Fat chance, they will do their own
thing and become big their own way.

The best strategy is to learn to become your own "smart nerd". You may not be
as good as those around you, but you have to show that you are committed to
the project, and that you actually have some technical sense of what it will
take to do what you dream.

I'll be much more likely to work with someone if they show me they have
thought about user interface, technology, done some mockups, etc, than someone
who comes to me with something they thought up while drinking.

Finally, it helps to actually give a shit about the person, rather than
imagine them as some "resource" to be "had". I know one guy who would spam
aspiring programmers walls with reasons why they should work for his company,
including adding a bullet point listing himself as a selling point ("Work with
the 2011 entrepreneur of the year!" He said, failing to mention that he
himself, was that entrepreneur). Stop being so egotistical and fucking treat
people with respect. If they have their own ideas, listen to them, and if one
sounds interesting, help them out in any way you can. It will be a huge shift
than what their used to, people being actively interested in their ideas and
wanting to work with them on it.

~~~
true_religion
I've been through 3 start ups from fruition to close, with the highs and lows
in-between playing merry hell with my blood pressure.

At this point in my life I'd _kill_ for a smart business man. Nerds, I do not
need. I'm a nerd, I know plenty of other nerds, and if I needed to I know
where to go to hire nerds and how to evaluate their performance.

What I need is a good _business man_. I need someone who is an absolute genius
at PR, brilliant at direct selling, and knows how to wheedle her way into the
appointment book of a Big-Co CEO when we need to make a product deal.

Where can I find that?

~~~
9oliYQjP
You can't make a good General in boot camp, but a lot of business types today
rush into startups armed with an MBA or BBA. Wars produce Generals for the
next wars. What you're looking for is somebody in a startup (not necessarily a
founder) right now who won't be ready to be your co-founder until they have
gone through a big war on their own. Get to know a few of these people and one
day over beers and "would have", "should have", "could have" stories of their
current or past startup you will find your business co-founder.

~~~
larrys
"rush into startups armed with an MBA or BBA"

Let me add to your excellent comment this from my experience at Wharton. There
are people who go and get their MBA or BS etc who were liberal arts majors or
who never thought about business until they decided one day to go to business
school. Then there are people (and I'm sure you know these people) who have
lived and breathed business since they were 4. In many cases they came from
business families and it's part of their makeup. They were always angling to
make money in high school and college and did things on the side to earn a
buck whatever way they could. Those are the types that you should try to have
on your team if possible. They have a seat of the pants feel for business and
it's in their blood. Going through business school I was absolutely amazed at
the number of people in the classroom (with 1600 SAT's at the time the highest
score) who didn't understand some really basic business concepts.

This is not to say in any way shape or form that it doesn't exist in someone
who decided one day to pursue business of course it does and there are many
examples of those that are super successful. But normally they are not
successful out of the box without, as you would say, a few wars under their
belt. The person with a business upbringing has a head start.

~~~
wtvanhest
Larrys,

I left commercial real estate to enter an MBA program thinking everyone would
be "like me", extremely interested in business. I was shocked when I got there
and found just a small group who got it. Then I went to a major tech company
in the Valley (finance internship) and was even more shocked at how few of
them got it.

I got an offer but turned it down to work at an asset management company.
Finally for the first time in my life I am surrounded by people who get it.
(60% don't have MBAs)

An MBA doesn't mean anything except that the person has gone through a 2 year
degree and knows a lot of random business stuff (supply and demand, being a
monopoly is good, knows how to model a DCF etc.).

That being said, an MBA doesn't mean the person is terrible either. In
general, an MBA allows the person to grow a lot, gain some great relationships
and helps them communicate with other business people. Lumping all MBAs
together is like lumping all programmers together.

Most business people are not great, most programmers are not great. see 20/80
rule.

~~~
larrys
"Lumping all MBAs together is like lumping all programmers together"

People do this with most things (they think all doctors carry around
information about everything in their profession and every specialty).

This is why I get a laugh when I hear from someone (people who chuckle about
their computer stupidity) that someone, a friend, "knows so much about
computers". I mean how do you know how much someone knows if you don't know
about it yourself?

------
ccc3
Can we please drop this hyperbolic platitude that "ideas are worthless." You
need to have ideas. That's how you decide what to do. In the case that the
author describes, your ideas will help you decide what type of "smart nerds"
you need to find. After all, there are as many different types of nerds as
there are topics to study in depth.

The real problem is thinking that you're just one big idea away from a
successful company. A successful company is made up of thousands of ideas and
many man-years of execution. The real value creation happens when you have
infrastructure in place to separate the good ideas from the bad ones.

So it's true that a single untested idea isn't worth much, but a huge
collection of validated ideas really is valuable.

~~~
tjr
We're quick to jump on ideas without implementation as being worthless, but is
it because it's so nonsensical to have an implementation without an idea? If
we could have such a thing, we'd probably deem that pretty worthless too: a
software application that doesn't actually do anything in particular, just
kind of meanders around, even if it's very well coded and documented.

~~~
yesbabyyes
That's called a framework!

------
agentultra
I just despise the condescending stereotype.

The author isn't wrong... but "nerd," IMO, is still derogatory in the way it's
used. There's a prevailing idea amongst non-technical business people that
developers are replaceable cogs and will jump at the chance to work on the
next big idea for the smallest portion the business person thinks they can get
away with.

This kind of wishful thinking, I find, is offensive. I don't work 8 - 10 hours
a day; spend 2 hours a night hacking, reading, and practicing; and spend good
money to attend conferences just so that I can work on your idea. Worse, many
business people expect me to work for half of nothing. They think that their
idea has some sort of inherent value. That it is actually so unique and
innovative that it is actually worth something.

Newsflash: you probably didn't think of it yourself.

Anyway.. my advice if you need a technical co-founder: don't call them nerds.
If someone doesn't mind being called a nerd they'll let you know. You sound
like a clueless douche when you say, "I need a nerd to build this project."
You sound like you don't even care about what we "nerds" put our heart and
souls into doing. If it was so easy you wouldn't need people with our skills
and experience... so be nice and come to the realization that if you want to
start a tech company with no tech experience you're going to have to take the
smaller portion of the equity and have a good amount of cash on hand.

Otherwise make good friends and wish for the best.

------
krosaen
As a geek who's now trying to start my own company I can say that conversely,
just being a geek who knows how to build things does not make success easy
either; other skills matter too. I have gained a much greater appreciation for
product management, UI / UX and sales. The hard thing to figure out is whether
that guy with an idea who approaches you at a meetup _has_ these other skills;
it's a lot easier to B.S a track record.

~~~
terrencelui
I think you are learning what a lot of developers end up learning. There is a
big difference between having an idea and actually having the skill to do
Product Management. I think you can determine relatively quickly in a meetup
who actually has these skills by questioning them deeply about their idea.
Have they actually thought about the implementation. Do they understand the
limitations that technology may impose? What problems do they anticipate? etc.

------
gfodor
"Steve used to say to me -- and he used to say this a lot -- "Hey Jony, here's
a dopey idea."

And sometimes they were. Really dopey. Sometimes they were truly dreadful. But
sometimes they took the air from the room and they left us both completely
silent. Bold, crazy, magnificent ideas. Or quiet simple ones, which in their
subtlety, their detail, they were utterly profound.

And just as Steve loved ideas, and loved making stuff, he treated the process
of creativity with a rare and a wonderful reverence. You see, I think he
better than anyone understood that while ideas ultimately can be so powerful,
they begin as fragile, barely formed thoughts, so easily missed, so easily
compromised, so easily just squished."

------
dasil003
I'm not totally sure this is really written for the HN audience, but since its
self-submitted I'm going to speak my mind.

Everyone with any chops in silicon valley already knows this. It's established
conventional wisdom at this point. Yes, there are still a lot of people who
need to hear it (I sit next to them on airplanes sometimes), but around here
this is preaching to the choir in the most fundamental sense. Furthermore,
debating the nuance of such a proclamation is masturbatory. Yes reality is
nuanced, you can always find a counter-example, but frankly an intellectual
understanding of the relative importance of "ideas" (whatever that really
means in a knowledge economy) is probably one of the most useless forms of
wisdom you can aspire to as an entrepreneur.

~~~
jorkos
The title of this post should really be "your idea is worthless if you can't
execute on it." When you have the technical skills to implement ideas, they
become incredibly valuable: witness google, hotmail, youtube, facebook....etc.

------
darwindeeds
Its very interesting to read about non technical co-founders find it really
hard to find a CTO for their startup. In our case me and my buddy/partner are
both technical and our knowledge set covers from frontend UI to backup DB
tuning and performance but what we lacked in business skills made us shelve
our first project. We also realized that ideas not always extrapolate into an
useful product. Ideas that seemed world changing stopped making sense over
time.

------
AdamFernandez
So the 'idea' is worthless without a smart nerd's execution and coding?
Exactly what does an engineer do without an idea? The answer is nothing. They
have nothing to execute on. Did Mark Zuckerberg not conceive of the idea of
Facebook? Did Jack Dorsey not do the same for Twitter?

Engineers do not gather in a room and summon ideas to their pre-existing code.
I see so much 'idea' bashing when it is such an essential ingredient to
anything that is created. Without question, an idea guy without the ability to
code, or the knowledge of what's possible will have a difficult if not
impossible task ahead of him. But an engineer without an idea will face the
same.

There is a balance. And it usually exists between co-founders (one engineer,
one idea person) who already had a long-term relationship before the creation
of the product. The other common scenario is for one person who has the idea,
and engineering skills to bring it into fruition on their own. It is very rare
for one person to find a 'nerd' to create their idea. Both the ability to
execute and the idea should be given equal weight. It still shocks me that
this is not the case.

~~~
freemarketteddy
>Engineers do not gather in a room and summon ideas to their pre-existing
code.

Everything we build is on top of pre-existing stuff.If there was no
mysql/php,there would be no facebook.If there was no OpenBSD,there would be no
iOS.If there was no dns there would be no Google.

The mentality that anything is possible and you just need a nerd to do it is
exactly the reason why I have a hard time working with non-technical people!

~~~
AdamFernandez
I didn't state that engineers don't use pre-existing code. I stated that they
don't summon ideas to it. They have to be creative enough to come up with them
on their own, or partner up with someone they know well who is just as capable
and also has great ideas. That has nothing to do with layers of software
abstraction and building upon them. If no new ideas were in play, we would
continue using all the technologies you just mentioned, in their current
frozen 2011 state, forever.

And let me just emphasize that engineering skill is invaluable and an absolute
necessity. I also didn't state that anything is possible. I'm am simply tired
of this 'ideas are worthless' sentiment because it is ridiculous. It should be
'an idea without the ability execute on it is just an idea' just as 'execution
is impossible without an idea'.

~~~
freemarketteddy
>I stated that they don't summon ideas to it

Thats exactly what I am trying to argue against.

And in that regard the idea of Google is the direct derivative of the idea of
DNS....the idea of Facebook is a direct derivative of the idea of having
personal computers that can exchange TCP Packets.

You have used Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey to make your argument.Please
remember that these guys are among the best engineers of our generation.

As a matter of fact the ideas of almost all of our current technologies came
from engineers and not MBAs.(If you think Steve Jobs was not an engineer
please read his bio!).Forget computers...Even Henry Ford was one of the best
engineers of his generation.

Most of my best implemented ideas (the word implemented is very important!)
came to me when I asked myself the simple question...what can I do to help
people with all the code that I already have (code = My own code and Open
sourced stuff) ?..If there is something small that can complete a great idea I
go ahead and code it!

------
sendos
Reading all these 'ideas are worthless' diatribes reminds me of kids who learn
a new thing that blows their minds and then start parroting it to everyone,
without realizing that there are lots of nuances that they are leaving out of
the simple fact they just learnt and are telling to everyone who will listen.

Yes, people who don't know any better think that their idea is worth billions,
and they "only" need someone to implement it. These are the equivalents of 5
clueless year-olds.

Then, people realize that, you know, implementation/execution is a really
necessary component of a successful venture, and without execution every
venture will fail. This leads people to think that execution is paramount and
therefore ideas are worthless. This blows their minds and they want to let the
world know of this amazing new fact.

The problem is that the reality is more complex. You need both. You need a
great idea and great execution if you want to succeed. It's like a chain with
two links. If either of them breaks, the chain is broken. Doesn't mean that
the link on the right is more important, or the link on the left is more
important.

For those who think ideas are worthless, do you think two friends, one of whom
is a top programmer while the other is a great business person, and who both
work for a big company, would these people leave their jobs if they had no
idea to start working on once they quit their jobs? Do you think it's wise for
these to just quit their jobs and _then_ start thinking of what idea they will
start executing on?

Do you think investors put millions into random teams of awesome talent
(programmers, sales, business development, etc), without those teams having
any idea what they will work on, with the expectation that since they are such
great executors, that they will find something to work on and make a great
return on the investors' money?

------
p0wn3d
Start a topic on HN asking for smart nerds who can put up a website in 5
minutes and that also have time for a new venture and it will probably be one
of the top postings. The problem is that we have an abundance of smart nerds
putting up stupid ass useless websites without thinking it through and with no
direction. Way too many stupid ideas.

------
j45
Folks who see ideas everywhere are overflowing with them and often paralyzed
by them.

That's one way ideas are generally worthless. Execution is far more important.

To execute, smart nerds alone might not do it. You need smart people who get
it, in all positions.

Who will help get it and get it done? Maybe people who over-value ideas but
have lots of energy to put into an idea they get?

~~~
paulhauggis
Exactly.

I am a developer and I have lots of friends that are also developers that have
trouble executing ideas.

I think many developers focus too much on the beauty of the code (and
perfection) rather than the functionality of the app.

~~~
yxhuvud
Can a code base be beautiful if it doesn't solve the actual business problem?

I'd argue that it cannot and that you will not be able to write beautiful code
until you understand the business and what needs it has. Developers that
understand the business will focus on what is important.

------
int3rnaut
I think an idea might be worthless, but a good idea holds tremendous value.
Maybe not monetarily, but in the sense that one good idea can rally other
people around you to join the cause and spend their precious time and money
(along side you--as others have pointed out, an ideas man work is not done
after he merely lays an idea egg on the carpet like some golden idea laying
goose) working towards making this thing trapped in the aether of space a
reality. I think everyone is aware that startups and businesses and everything
in life takes a lot of sweat, blood, and tears, but as cliche as it sounds, it
all starts with that one good idea.

------
kstenerud
Ideas are not necessarily worthless; it's just that so many people place far
too much emphasis on the idea with no consideration for the cost of execution.
Unfortunately, the backlash to this flawed assumption has caused the pendulum
to swing too far in the other direction, where "ideas are worthless" has
become a sort of mantra. The problem with mantras is that they are oft quoted,
but rarely contemplated.

Ideas come to nothing without execution, but execution will have no direction
without an idea to foster.

The real problems come when someone trades the weight of the idea against
contributing work. The extreme of this is an idea guy who "does the hard work"
of coming up with the idea, then expects his partner(s) to do everything else
while he sits in an armchair sipping a martini.

Execution comes down to playing it smart, and wading up to your armpits in
shit. Every founder must have something to contribute on a day-to-day basis to
turn the idea into a reality. Every founder needs to do shit work. Every
founder is responsible for the product, and must always be looking at it with
a critical eye, and discussing any concerns or refinements. Of course, one
person needs to be the final decision maker, but everyone shares ultimate
responsibility.

Execution and ideas are the chicken and the egg. A bad egg yields a bad
product, but failed execution ruins everything it touches.

~~~
Kuiper
Having a good idea is very important to the success of a startup. However,
their market value is lessened by the fact that the supply of "good ideas"
greatly exceeds the demand. Between the idea, the talent, and the elbow
grease, the idea is the least likely of the three to be the bottleneck. An
idea is like a computer. It's essential to the success of your project, but
they're not that hard to come by, a lot of people have them, and obtaining one
is probably the least difficult part of the process. Ideas aren't worthless,
but they are worth less.

------
groby_b
Finding "smart nerds" really won't work.

First of all, quite a few of them will be disliking you for using a derogatory
term. If you've got a tech person looking for a "PR flak" or a "business
suit", you'd be offended too. Try treating people you want to partner with as
human beings. I hear it helps.

Second, take a look at what value _you_ bring to the table. If your idea is
indeed worthless, why would anybody sign up to work with you? It's perfectly
fine if your answer is e.g. "my Rolodex". The point is, know your strengths.
Find people who complete you. A truly brilliant idea with a strong vision _is_
worth something. It's worth nothing by itself, but the same holds true for
technical brilliance. Or a great Rolodex. Or insane sales skills. You'll need
_all_ of that to succeed, and a huge dose of luck. The one difference between
the idea and the others is that an idea loses value over time, so you've got
to bring more than an idea.

If your answer however is "I don't bring much to the table, except an idea",
you're in trouble. You shouldn't worry about finding smart people who can help
you, you should think about clarifying what it is you can contribute _after_
that first meeting.

------
vdondeti
(This is a copy of my comment on the original post) For those that say ideas
are next to worthless, when you think about why Google search succeeded, do
think it was because of their execution or because of their idea about the
importance of backlinks (i.e. the BackRub/PageRank algorithm). Of course, it
is a combination of the two, but it is greatly mistaken to think that ideas
are next to worthless. I think Daniel Bobke (commented on original post) has
it right, when he commented that a good idea is necessary but not sufficient
for success. Bad ideas are a dime a dozen, but good/great ideas are rare
indeed. Though at times it is hard to tell if an idea is a good/great idea. I
think a truly good idea will motivate you to work hard and as Jake Croston
(commented on original post) stated drive you to keep going to find the path
to good execution, even if you fail at first. Think about it another way:
would you rather work for a firm that had (1) a great idea, but terrible
execution or (2) a terrible idea, but great execution? I would work for firm
(1) in a heartbeat.

~~~
freemarketteddy
How do you intend to prove that Larry Page and Sergey Brin were the only
humans who thought of that way of ranking links.?

What I can prove is that they were the first humans to come up with a
technological system that implements that.

------
aufreak3
We don't need to be told ideas are worthless. What we need is how to tell
_when_ an idea is worth it?

The "eureka method of idea formation", I think, banks on our grand vision of
telling a great story at some point in the future about how the thought of
this cool thing came to us in a flash of lightning and how our lives were
never the same from that point on. Unadulterated self deception!

So where to look for great ideas? Here might be one candidate - places where
people have been collecting and digesting data about a problem area for a
period of time, find themselves stuck with a problem, toss and turn it around
for a while and find an unprecedented way to think about it. In other words,
ask "what process of engagement with the domain have you gone through that led
to that idea?". The process is, I think, likely to give a hint about the value
of the idea.

I'm sure the school bully mentioned will have a tough time answering that
question.

------
amorphid
For a couple years I was that business guy with a good idea and no money
looking for a technical co-founder, but that strategy failed. Then I learned
how to execute using a very lightweight web app that I paid a consultant to
build and hired people who were smart enough and trained them from scratch. In
2 years I've gone from one person and $0 in cash to a business w/ great
margins & nine people w/ all growth paid for by sales by focusing on a single
idea and always holding onto it. Pretty soon I'll be able to pay for the
people I need to scale the business to much larger.

In my opinion calling ideas worthless shows a lack of vision and creativity.
It is very possible to engineer a business that can dominate from a single
idea; doing so takes some fortitiude, cash, moxie, luck, strategy,
determination, and a bunch of other adjectives.

------
terrencelui
As author of the Original Post I think you need a balance team where everybody
brings something unique and important to the table. It's not enough to just
come up with the "idea". You have to know how that idea will morph into other
things. You have to know how you can extend that idea. You have to know how
competition will force you to iterate. Etc.

I don't agree that you should become your own smart nerd. I shudder at anyone
with no technical background picking up a programming book at just trying to
learn to code. I'm not saying it isn't valuable to learn new things, but it
would be a better use of time honing the things that make you unique and
finding a person with the talents you lack to compliment yourself.

~~~
eggbrain
The point is to not become as good as a smart nerd, because you'll be playing
catch up your whole life. The point is that you need to show that you know
enough about your idea on the technical side that you can communicate
effectively with your partner. Knowing some basic principles of coding goes a
long way in that regard, and it also shows that you are willing to become
interested in things outside your level of expertise -- even if you aren't
willing to become a master at them.

I've sat down with many people who needed a technical person to implement
their idea. But as they were talking it should have became immediately clear
to anyone with technical knowledge why their idea was flawed in fundamental
ways. But these people never delved into that side, so they figured
programmers could somehow perform miracles and make it work, and had
unrealistic ideas of deadlines, money that would be needed, etc. As a
programmer, you don't want to have to deal with correcting many false
assumptions someone is making and any others they will make as you build the
product, when there are plenty of "technical enough" entrepreneurs who know
whats possible and whats not.

~~~
terrencelui
I think we are in agreement here. My greatest strength as the "idea" guy comes
from the fact that I was a developer at one point. I am technical enough to
ground my ideas in reality.

The advice I did give to one person who asked me was to go get a job at a tech
company. You don't have to code, but you have to know how technical products
come together so that you can have an intelligent conversation with your
future technical cofounder.

------
geebee
I thin the "idea vs execution" debate often misses a key point - that in
highly creative environments, the idea _is_ the execution. In this sense, I
think software development may be more like writing or painting than building
a house. Every sentence a novelist writes changes the outcome... a painter may
have an idea, but by the time it's done, the act of painting has transformed
it. This is why I think it so important to be able to code if you want to
produce software.

------
pnathan
Eh. Yes and no.

You also need the functions of sales, marketing, HR, legal, customer service,
etc. Possibly more, depending on your field. Just having a product simply will
_not_ cut it.

If you are looking to hire a software writer, you need to be prepared to back
up the non-software side significantly. We can all flap good ideas around like
hankies, that's not a problem. Being able to execute the Human side as opposed
to the Tech side, that's what needs to be in the picture.

------
TheCapn
I think its characteristic of people to devalue a different expert's
contribution to a project. I am definitely typecast "nerd" and take on
projects that have a huge weight on my shoulders. I look at what encompasses a
successful project and consider the construction/design the most important
part while degrading the marketing aspect of things and feel that this is a
dangerous outlook to maintain.

The author writes the article saying that any idea or project is worthless
without a strong foundation of workers to erect it from the ground up. As
"hackers" most of us look at the problem and say that we could build it
ourselves and other work is less crucial. What I want to do is stretch the
analogy further and say that hackers can build a wonderful monument but if
we're short sighted enough to build it on a deserted island its equally
useless. Projects take more than the simple questions of what and how and
require strong answers to when, where and why to be successful.

What I'm really saying is we lift ourselves up above others unnecessarily
sometimes. The work of a person pitching ideas or marketing the product can be
just as critical to the success as is the construction of the product. When
evaluating ideas for their potential don't focus entirely on how its built
without considering everything else, its easy to do that as hackers when you
over-value your contribution to the entire life-cycle.

------
tomjen3
Actually finding smart nerds isn't so difficult. It takes a little bit of
work, but you can at least see what they have built.

On the other hand, you can't do that with a business person and finding a good
non-technical cofounder is a very different problem.

~~~
jstraszheim
This is very hard for non-nerds. Imagine simply not knowing what Github is, or
why you would look there, or having no concept that "Java EE backed by Oracle"
is a different beast than "Ruby/Rails in front of PostGres". Imagine if one of
your golf buddies knows a guy who knows a guy who is really "good at
computers" -- whatever that means -- after all, that guy completely turned
around their dot-net application and the seven VB developers in his
department.

You've heard of Oracle, right? Microsoft? They're big. You own their stock.
You know Linux is hot! Should you take the chance? Ask your nerd friends, like
that guy you know who is an MCSE at a "Certified Solutions Provider." He'll
know.

Simply knowing who to ask is a matter of chance, I think.

------
AznHisoka
Ideas are not worthless if you have a strong understanding on why your idea
will work. They're worthless if you think they're cool, creative, and don't
stop to analyze the weaknesses of it.

------
CrazyInu
The problem is I can code anything, but can't find any artists to back me up.
And talented art isn't much easier to find than talented coding.

------
rdouble
If ideas are so worthless why are companies spending billions of dollars on
them, in the form of patent portfolios?

~~~
sokoloff
Patents are, in theory, only granted on ideas which have been reduced to
practice (implemented).

I can't get a patent on the _idea_ of a time machine. I _can_ get a patent on
an actual time machine.

------
ootachi
Eh. I think the success of companies like patio11's is proof that technical
achievement really doesn't matter at all (no offense intended to patio11!),
and that marketing and finding the right niche (both of which are more related
to ideas) are really the most important things. Hire good marketers, but skimp
on engineering (or just outsource it).

~~~
freemarketteddy
Good luck with that....and please....if you can make Bingo Card Creator with
your free time I would consider you a highly skilled technical person...Most
"idea-guys" have trouble making their wordpress blogs!

~~~
ootachi
My point is not that you don't have to know how to code to make Bingo Card
Creator, it's that you could outsource its development to odesk and get it for
$50.

"Smart nerds" are useless in most cases. They're interchangeable. Marketing
and finding a niche are far, far more important.

~~~
ericd
Based on your comments, I'm going to guess that you've never run any sort of
technically demanding business. I absolutely guarantee you that you wouldn't
get something comparable back from ODesk, because you don't know how to spec
out what he's got going on under the hood there. It takes a smart nerd to do
that effectively.

------
freemarketteddy
A tech-nerd becoming a good businessman is not that common but we have seen
many examples and we know its not that hard to do.(Take Eric Schmidt or Bill
Gates for example).

Please give me ONE (I repeat ONE!) example of an MBA becoming a rockstar
programmer....The fact there is possibly no one like that should give you a
teeny tiny glimpse at the future!

~~~
jleader
I work with a guy with an MBA in statistics and operations management. I don't
know if he's "rockstar" programmer, but he writes his own Perl and shell
scripts and SQL queries, I've heard he's pretty skilled in SAS programming,
and I've watched him dig into some Javascript to figure out exactly why a
particular A/B test was giving funny results.

Never bet against the existence of outliers!

~~~
freemarketteddy
Let me clarify what I mean by "rockstar programmer"....A rockstar programmer
is someone who is orders of magnitude more productive that the average
programmer of his generation....Someone who can build technologies himself
that can disrupt entire industries...Some notable examples in this category
are Linus Torvalds,Mark Zuckerberg,Doug Cutting,Mark Andressen etc....Now show
me someone in this category from a purely business school background!

I am not talking about the business people who want to dig into Javascript
(Although I have a lot of respect for the guy you are talking about).I am
talking about someone who can build a technology like javascript.

~~~
dextorious
Mark Zuckerberg?

How the hell does Zuckenberg belong to this category, with Linus and Doug
Cutting?

~~~
freemarketteddy
well...I think creating a site like facebook in your dorm room as a college
student and scaling it is significantly challenging (you are competing against
myspace!)...but thats just my opinion!

But yeah I see what you are saying...Doug and Linus are pure technical problem
solvers whereas Mark solved business and technical problems.

------
rkon
If ideas are worthless, then every 'smart nerd' should be extremely
successful. We all know that's not the case, so we should also know better
than to click on articles with such myopic titles.

'Vision' and 'idea' are essentially the same thing, and the author admits
vision is necessary. Why is it that everyone tries to separate the two?
Because that makes it so easy to write a contentious article? How unoriginal.

------
HilbertSpace
So, the author asks:

"What do you think? Do you think people overestimate the value of an idea or
am I just full of it?"

Along with the author is "Ideas are easy and plentiful. Execution is hard and
everything."

Well, first what is being discussed is just an intuitive, off-hand, wild
guess, up all night, sophomore beer party bull session 'business idea'.

The 'subtext', the real intention of saying that an idea is worthless is to
insult, intimidate, and denigrate entrepreneurs.

For most such bull session ideas, yes, they are nearly worthless. Fine. But we
knew that.

But this whole theme totally throws out all the baby with the bathwater. The
theme says that that the haystack is mostly just hay with only a few golden
needles so throws out the whole haystack.

We know: Any major business success is quite exceptional and necessarily so
since the economy can't have everyone a billionaire.

The goal, then, is NOT to say something general about the haystack but to find
the golden needles, not to notice that the average is nearly worthless but to
say how to find GOOD business ideas.

So, first cut for something better we should say:

Good ideas are difficult. Given a good idea, execution should be routine.

Why routine? That's easy to see: All across the US, coast to coast, border to
border, from villages with just one crossroad up to towns and the largest
cities, the US is just awash in entrepreneurs who as 'sole proprietors' had a
'business idea' and executed successfully enough to buy a house, support a
family, get the kids through college, and have a secure retirement. You know
their companies -- general contracting, roofing, plumbing, electrical
contracting, kitchen and bath remodeling, paving, grass mowing, landscaping,
masonry, auto repair, auto body repair, tire shops, muffler and brake shops,
big truck-little truck suppliers of enormous variety, pizza carryout, Chinese
carryout, Italian red sauce red checked tablecloth restaurants, white table
cloth French restaurants, 'drive-ins, diners, and dives', dentists, barbers,
gas stations, convenience stores, CPAs, tax accountants, business lawyers,
pediatricians, dermatologists, podiatrists, independent insurance agents, and
on and on.

They nearly never get venture capital, but at the bodies of water they own
nearly all the yachts from 35 feet to 60 feet when nearly none of the yachts
are owned by anyone who got venture capital.

So, there are millions of such successful sole proprietors. So we have to
conclude that, given a reasonably good 'business idea', being successful
enough for, say, a 50 foot yacht is 'routine', that is, doesn't require an MBA
or 'marquee' CEO or a really good 'top management team'. Indeed, as we know
well, the US is just awash in people who have successfully managed
organizations from a few dozen people up to a few thousand in education, the
military, or government. So, getting competent, proven general management
talent is also 'routine'.

So, let's hear no more of how difficult execution is or how much special
expertise and advice is needed.

Then for the 'good idea', there really are such. Good ideas are golden, not
worthless, plentiful, or obvious. And there are some sufficient conditions for
a good idea, and these conditions have been well proven. So the idea that we
can't get good ideas is shaky.

A good business idea is close to having a solid plan. Can we have a solid
plan? In many crucial fields, absolutely: From building tall bridges, high
dams, tall buildings, long ships, and much more, we can get solid bids that
will be executed on time, within budget, with only reasonable profits.

So, the idea that we can't plan effectively is shaky.

How to have a 'good idea'? Here is an example: (1) Pick a serious cancer. (2)
Find a molecule that is a safe, effective, inexpensive cure for that cancer.
Done. That's a sufficient condition. Is this a good idea? Clearly it is: As
soon as safe, effective, and inexpensive have been demonstrated, there is no
shortage of large pharmaceutical companies ready, willing, able, and eager to
buy the patent on the molecule for big bucks right away. Then, indeed, the
execution is routine and not "everything". Indeed, the idea was everything,
and all the rest was easy.

Is finding such a good idea easy? No. But I didn't say that meeting the
sufficient conditions was easy. Indeed, I said that it was "difficult".

So, from this example we begin to see what a good idea is and why, with a good
idea, execution is routine.

Is there a general way to find good ideas? Sure: First, pick a problem where a
much better solution will be valuable. Second, do some research to find such a
solution.

How to do such research? Sure: The US is just awash, the unchallenged, unique
world-class, grand champion, in how to do research. Indeed of the world's top
50 research universities, nearly all are in the US, and you know a lot of the
names: Harvard, MIT, Cornell, Yale, NYU, Columbia, SUNY, Rockefeller,
Princeton, Johns Hopkins, UNC, Georgia Tech, CMU, Chicago, U. Illinois, U.
Michigan, U. Wisconsin, U. Washington, U. California, Stanford, Cal Tech, and
more. Not a big secret.

How to do research? There's education for that, the Ph.D.

Does research connect with solid plans for projects? Sure it does. The unique,
world-class, all-time grand champion of research funding knows this, and this
is why they fund the research universities. This grand champion has known this
for over 70 years. Who is the champion? May I have the envelope, please? Here
it is: The grand champion is the US DoD. The research they funded has led to
fantastic progress in bombs, rockets, airplanes, submarines, etc. We got
radar, sonar, the images for Google Earth, GPS, stealth, and much more. In
just two words, it works.

A good example is the SR-71: It was proposed just on paper and was delivered
essentially as promised.

Can such research play a role in Web 2.0 Internet startups? Sure. How?
Exercise for the reader. Hint: Notice the remarks above.

But do VCs know this? In biomedical technology, often yes. In information
technology hardware, also often yes. In just software for Web 2.0, could count
without taking shoes off all the VCs with backgrounds to evaluate relevant
research. So, for Web 2.0, the answer is essentially no.

Does this answer of no mean that research for Web 2.0 is impractical? No: All
across the US sole proprietors without VC funding start carryout pizza shops.
Some of these entrepreneurs grow to, say, 10 pizza shops. Then they can buy a
small yacht. But the capital required for a Web 2.0 startup is much less than
for just one pizza shop. So if pizza shop entrepreneurs can convert their
ideas to money, then a Web 2.0 entrepreneur should be able to convert a good
research idea to money.

Back to it; I've done the research and have nearly all the software done and a
little more to write. But what is crucial is the 'idea', that is, the
research, and the software is just routine. Then users will like it or they
won't, and in either case the execution will be routine.

So, to answer the author's question, yes, he's "full of it", not in the
average case but in the relevant, desired, exceptional case.

~~~
gbog
You might have something interesting to say here but it is hard to tell
because of the rhetorical contortions, the extensive listings, the
amplifications. All these may make good play, but make no good HN comment.

