

Please, Take My Ideas - benbinary
http://benbloch.posterous.com/please-take-my-ideas

======
jiganti
"Actually, startup ideas are not million dollar ideas, and here's an
experiment you can try to prove it: just try to sell one. Nothing evolves
faster than markets. The fact that there's no market for startup ideas
suggests there's no demand. Which means, in the narrow sense of the word, that
startup ideas are worthless"

No, this is flawed logic. If you try to sell an idea, the act of selling it
means it's not worth anything, because the worth of an idea depends on
peoples' willingness to keep it secret.

Articles saying ideas are worthless are a dime a dozen, because great ideas
are so scarce. Most decent ideas need great execution, and a lot of great
ideas need good execution since they are easily copyable (so if they don't
gain a ridiculous amount of traction, someone else can come win the new
space).

~~~
benbinary
The ideas are worthless argument has been made more than enough, that's not
the purpose of this post. I think your argument that "Most decent ideas need
great execution, and a lot of great ideas need good execution since they are
easily copyable" makes sense. My goal, and the purpose of this post, is to
share my ideas, for the motivations explained in the post.

------
singer
So, post your huge list of ideas :)

~~~
benbinary
That's the idea! I posted one of them here
<http://benbloch.posterous.com/idea-1-better-beta-testing>.

~~~
singer
The idea is to post a single idea at a time? Not such a good idea.

~~~
benbinary
This particular idea really consists of many sub-ideas. I'd rather explain the
problems and motivations behind the ideas rather than just dump a list on you.

------
mikegee
My general opinion on the matter is that ideas and execution _together_ are
valuable. A good idea (validated market?) with poor execution is likely to
produce a poor product. Conversely a bad idea (no market?) with outstanding
execution is also likely to produce a poor product. Pitting them against each
other doesn't make sense. They're two sides of the same coin. One thing is for
certain that we can all agree on: a great idea with great execution produces a
great product.

As far as sharing ideas go, I tend to only share with people I know. I
violently agree that collecting feedback on an idea is immensely valuable, but
there are many ways to go about doing so. Posting them into Hacker News is
probably the last thing I'd do, for two reasons:

1) Unless I'm building a super niche product targeted at
developers/entrepreneurs/designers, then Hacker News is not the place I should
be collecting feedback.

2) If anywhere there exists a capable group of "idea executers", it's here.
Paranoid? Maybe, but unless I am going to gain extremely relevant/targeting
feedback from my core audience (see #1), why take the risk?

</beatingdeadhorse>

