

Ask HN: When should you not tell people your ideas? - entangld

I went to an event for founders looking to meet partners and practice pitching. Some wanted help others wanted opinions.<p>At the end of the night I was talking with someone I'd been hanging out with most of the night. Mentioned an idea I'd been working on for a little while. He saw the money potential in it. And said it's better to test it and that he could probably build a prototype in an hour.<p>Haven't heard from him since. I know it's all about execution, but it's a simple idea. It's been a few weeks. He's probably just been busy/lazy.<p>But anyway, how much should you tell people about things you're working on?
======
Skywing
This is a good example of why you, yourself, should have made a minimally
viable product prior to pitching it to other developers.

I don't think he's gone home and began writing his own - that's not what I'm
getting at. I'm just saying, feedback is much more constructive when you can
show people functionality right then and there. If all you can show people is
a Photoshop rendering of the design, or can only give them a verbal
description of it, the feedback you get is going to be about that Photoshop
image. For example, they're going to be knit-picky about button placement or
font choice rather than whether or not they'd find the service useful.

Also, if you had gone in there with a demo to show, perhaps it'd seem more
concrete to others and they'd be more willing to jump on board rather than
ignore your messages.

edit: I guess to be more direct about your question - I tell people my ideas
usually as soon as I begin to think that I may be on to something. I tell my
close circle of friends first, to kind of bounce around the idea. Then, I
built a super basic demo in a night or two and go toss it around on IRC and
here on HN.

------
scorpioxy
I wouldn't take the "in an hour" thing too seriously. We all say that, but
what it really means is that the basic idea is not that difficult to implement
a prototype for and see if our assumptions are correct. They rarely are.

But to answer your question, I would always share my ideas with people who are
interested. The details are probably too much for a casual conversation, so
that's what I won't get into unless I know that there's a purpose for the
conversation such as co-founder seeking, investor, idea feedback...

