
Who stole your idea? - joelg87
http://www.weblicht.at/2010/12/who-stole-your-idea/
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joelg87
Reading this makes me think of a similar experience I've had which really
emphasised the point "Ideas are worth nothing without execution" for me. These
days, people say it all the time, but to experience it is another thing.

I'm starting to think it's very powerful (as far as necessary?) to go through
an experience like this.

One thing I'm pretty certain of is that this experience will change Leo's
thinking forever.

Related: Derek Sivers - "Ideas are just a multiplier or execution" -
<http://sivers.org/multiply>

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taphangum
I'm starting to get very tired of this way of thinking.

Ideas are VERY important. They give you the direction and aiming point that
your 'execution' will eventually be built from.

If the google guys had had the idea to let you search dog shoes instead of the
entire internet (even though the idea had been floating around for a while),
even if they executed it to perfection. They would NEVER have succeeded.
Unless they 'pivoted' (got another idea/direction).

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joelg87
I agree there's a lot of this talk happening right now.

In my view, the point here isn't that ideas are worthless, it's that ideas are
worthless _without execution_ \- this guy had an idea, and didn't act on it,
and then saw a very similar idea succeed.

I think ideas are very important, but I think persistence is even more
important, and I like the fact that the initial idea doesn't need to be
perfect since you can pivot (yes, another increasingly overused term!), e.g.
Microsoft, Paypal, Flickr.

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taphangum
Agreed.

The problem is that its intention often is misunderstood and it ends up just
misleading people. It's supposed to be motivation for lazy entrepreneurs to DO
something about their ideas but can be miscontrued and made to seem like any
old idea, well executed, will win. Which from my limited experience so far, is
just not true.

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joelg87
> can be miscontrued and made to seem like any old idea, well executed, will
> win

I completely agree. Though I guess it depends what you define as "well
executed" if it's just executing the tech behind the idea, then it's likely
you end up with something potentially technically very good but which nobody
wants. If we define "well executed" as involving tech and also customer
development, then I think executing a bad idea well must entail pivoting and
therefore you actually could end up with a winner. What do you think?

~~~
taphangum
I think that a bad idea becoming a good one is rare and almost like playing
the lotto. Though i do agree that pivots rarely have anything to do with the
tech involved.

Sidenote: Speaking of ideas, i just checked out yours, MyOnePage, i had a
different idea that, strangely enough, i think could work well with it. I'll
send you an email in a mo explaining it (didn't find your email add in your
profile. Send me a shout at t[at]thesketch.org or reply here) i'll contact you
asap. :)

