
Some ideas matter, just not the ones you think - lispython
http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2013/02/some-ideas-matter-just-not-the-ones-you-think.html
======
calinet6
"Startup wisdom holds that startup ideas don't matter too much because
execution is everything."

Boy I hope that's not what people really think.

Ideas are everything. Execution is everything. You get one wrong, you get
everything wrong.

You have to think holistically top to bottom. I like his overall point, which
is basically that _ideas about execution_ are the ones that matter. But the
ideas at the beginning matter too.

~~~
mindcrime
_Ideas are everything. Execution is everything. You get one wrong, you get
everything wrong_

That's pretty much my take on the whole "ideas vs execution" debate, with a
nuanced caveat or two. Neither a good idea nor great execution is _sufficient_
to build a great startup, and I'd argue that both are _necessary_ depending on
how you define "good idea".

IOW:

bad idea, poorly executed: FAIL

bad idea, well executed: FAIL

good idea, poorly executed: FAIL

good idea, well executed: MAYBE

I say it depends a bit on how you define "good idea" though, because I
strongly believe that a "good idea" does not (necessarily) _need_ to be
something earth-shattering, brand new, never-seen-before, etc. Sometimes your
"good idea" can actually be something that already exists, and you plan to win
by simply executing better than the competition.

All of that said, I agree very much with gweinberg on the point about ideas
_within the context of execution_ mattering. In fact, reading that just
sparked a couple of actionable ideas on my part. Those are the articles I love
reading on HN.. the ones where I walk away with a new TODO (other than "read
this later").

~~~
wsdom221
Definitions are kind of problematic.

In our community, "bad idea, well executed" is also a _maybe_ \- not a "fail"
- on succeeding - as by definition if you're executing well you know when to
pivot and aren't afraid to do so, or you are simply succeeding despite a bad
idea[1], or are doing what it takes to push it through.

Also I'd like to point out that the definition of executing well is almost
begging the question. To answer the question "Was it well-executed?", we apply
the heuristic "Did they succeed? get numbers up? generate sales, investment,
etc..". Then we are only 'testing' our own definition and every successful
company will be "well-executed" and vice versa.

I'm not sure how to improve these definitions, but it's important to realize
that asking how well a team is executing is problematic.

You would need a definition of "execution" that lets you point out teams that
are executing well and failing, before you had a concept of 'executing well'
that is useful and not just a proxy for 'succeeding.'

[1] Plenty of big, multibillion dollar product categories (McDonald's for one,
two year mobile phone contracts for another), are a really bad idea. If either
category didn't exist, I doubt an investor would think you could convince
people to like it, on a national scale.

~~~
mindcrime
I'm not sure if it's "begging the question" so much as just over-generalizing.
That is, I'm not sure there's an easy, binary distinction between "good idea"
and "bad idea". It may be that ideas are on a continuum from "really bad" --->
"ok" ----> "really awesome" or whatever. And a slightly dodgy, but not great,
idea may succeed if coupled with sufficiently awesome execution. OTOH, a kinda
good idea, with dodgy execution, can fail out.

And, this is skipping the issue of refining the actual idea itself as you
learn, which may not be quite as dramatic a shift as an actual "pivot".

Your point is definitely valid though, that there is a some semantic confusion
around this whole discussion.

------
jtchang
The thing is good execution can make a mediocre idea into a success.

The reason we ascribe so much more to execution around here is because coming
up with good ideas doesn't seem incredibly difficult. However it is one of
those things that looks easy but isn't in reality.

~~~
orangethirty
Experience has taught me otherwise. The idea _is part_ of the execution.
Meaning that you cannot do well what you have not defined. Doing something
requires knowing how and what you are doing. There are the same thing, and not
different entities. The whole notion of idea versus execution is wrong. You
cannot execute something which you have not thought of properly. Thus, the
idea is bad, and the execution will be bad. You can, however, improve on the
execution and end up with something entirely different. But it will also
improve on the idea itself.

The idea and execution are the same thing.

------
mempko
Markets are where good ideas go to die.

~~~
orangethirty
Markets are where ideas are tested. If they die, then the idea was not good to
begin with.

~~~
mempko
think of the test. What is being tested? If you haven't noticed, most software
is paid for by advertising, or selling people's private information. The
'market' where a lot of software can survive is being tested on several
criteria.

1\. does it trick people into giving away as much info as possible? 2\. does
it make people Dependant on it? 3\. does it provide any important social value
to those who have lots of money?

Even in a market where people pay real money for software, typically either
people need the software but won't buy it because it costs too much, or the
software is so cheap that they sacrifice some of their needs.

The market is where good ideas go to die.

Let's have a thought experiment. Imagine a world where we can get our best and
brightest people to work on any software for free. There is no need to pay
them or the hardware they use.

Do you think society would dedicate their brightest people to working on
advertising (Google, Facebook), or peddling cheap Chinese goods (Amazon), or
locking businesses into perpetual software cages (Microsoft, Oracle, Apple).

Do you think the market could have created the Internet? Do you think the
market could have created PCs? Do you think the market could have selected
Tablets?

(It is a hypothetical question, because none of those things were created
under market pressure.)

~~~
mempko
correction: none of those things were invented under market pressure.

