

It ain't a million-dollar idea until you've made a million dollars off it - rahulvarshneya

Thoughts?
======
coralreef
Can you sell an idea for money? No? Then an idea itself isn't worth anything.
There are good ideas and bad ideas. Good ideas have the potential to make you
a million dollars. Even if it could potentially earn you a billion dollars, do
you think you could sell it for a million? The market value for ideas would
suggest that no, they aren't worth much.

------
chrisBob
The value is in the execution. I don't think an idea is a million-dollar idea
even if you did make a million dollars off it.

------
solve
If ideas were worth nothing, YCombinator would be happy to tell us the ideas
of all their latest startups.

Would someone buy this information for money? Yes, I would.

~~~
coralreef
You can't buy an idea until you know what it is.

You can't know what it is until you buy it.

So how do you think a market for ideas would work?

~~~
solve
I can't? Yes I can, I just made an offer. To be specific, I'll start the
bidding at $20 for all the YC S2015 pitch ideas of the companies accepted to
interview. Don't tell me what I want :)

~~~
coralreef
And no one will take you on your offer. Offer all you want, but it would
appear that you can't buy ideas. If you could, than we would have tangible
evidence of it as a marketplace for ideas.

~~~
solve
There's something wrong with you dude.

~~~
coralreef
What's wrong with me? I'm really just saying that if business ideas were
buyable, we could buy them.

~~~
solve
The problem isn't lack of buyers.

National intelligence agencies spend billions per year buying information.
Corporate espionage groups spend immense amounts to get access to information.
Lots of buyers exist for information about businesses.

The problem is the sellers. The businesses don't want you to have it. And back
to my original point, if the businesses didn't care, they'd just be giving
this information away for free. Them refusing to sell it actually makes it
worth more on the market, which you'll know if you're familiar with market
dynamics.

~~~
coralreef
Sure, but data isn't an idea. Information is not an idea. Ideas are unproven
and are mostly intangible. Do you have any examples of actual, real ideas that
were sold or bought as is, at any time in the history of mankind? Any kind of
idea that was purchased and turned out to be profitable?

If the problem isn't lack of buyers, than why haven't we come across a single
person who makes a living purely by selling ideas?

