Ideas themselves should not be overrated. People often think the main part of building a successful product is having the right idea, and expect some form of compensation for submitting a good one. But as a matter of fact, if there is a problem to solve, many others have probably had similar ideas and the difference will be made in their implementations.
So the "compensation" of ideas with other ideas like here seems perfectly reasonable to me and should not be extended or gamified any further.
Yep, it is the execution of the idea where the money is. Most well known products are simple to explain / understand, but it was their implementation and ability to retain users on their platform that make them successful.
Reminds me of the slogan on the trucks of Sunset Scavenger Company, the predecessor to Recology: "Satisfaction guaranteed or double your garbage back".
I tried many approaches (although I didn't finish any implementation besides the first one, the worst) on idea sharing and feedback. This is probably a little better than the best I've thought in all these years.
Thanks. Yours looks very nice. I've been thinking of allowing comments on the ideas themselves but I like your approach better (where the comments fall into different categories).
Ideas which are 'actionable pieces of intellectual leverage' are actually massively underrated, and unfortunately grouped alongside mere daydreams.
If you happen to have a collection of design/market/engineering insights that could actually inform a working solution, you'd be a fool to just dump them into the public domain as free 'ideas'.
Executing the creation of a factory to produce lightbulbs is comparatively valueless, compared to inventing the first lightbulb. It's not only easier, it's also less important to society.
New ideas are actually incredibly important, and they might even be getting harder to find [0]. As Thiel said in 'Zero to One' [1]: "Every great business is built around a secret that’s hidden from the outside." Unless you have incredibly deep pockets or a monopoly, ideas are likely to be the only thing protecting you from your competition.
As an aside: the money isn't in execution, or in innovative ideas, but in the creation of economic moats [2].
Love this. I've been looking everywhere from reddit, twitter, hn to forums for inspiration for ideas (because I suck at coming up with my own).
I have more ideas about brick / mortar businesses (i.e. buy this thing off website X, rebrand and sell for Y% to make profit) than I do about SaaS business (which is my primary interest).
Just submitted an idea, which i think is pretty good idea, that i'm probably never going to implement myself, because i usually get lost in yak-shaving halfway (tried it three times). Let's see what ideas come out of this :)
For me as an all round analytics manager in enterprise there are plenty of pain points. I am not sure I'd call them ideas, but it would be great to share those, also to see who else has them.
This is great and positive and all things nice. How about making this more valuable by somehow connecting me with 10 people who know about this problem area or have tried or are interested in building a solution to this and more important : people who are facing this issue and are wanting to try out my solution to the problems that I am trying to solve ?
To be honest the only thing that will inspire me to build something is seeing 10 real people face real issues that I believe I can solve. Queue Management for example. Its 2016 (almost 2017) for heaven's sake and I still see people queuing up at cash registers, coffee shops and department stores alike. That's what I want to solve. How is 10 new ideas helping me ?
Edit: This unintentionally turned out more like a rant than constructive criticism. Its just that I have a feeble sense of what I want and this does not feel like it. Credit to the author for actually building it, putting it up here and having the courage to be open to feedback.
"If I submit 10 ideas, where are the 100 new ideas going to come from?"
Same place as the first 10, from other people's ideas. If you're an idea generating machine the DB will eventually run out of ideas to give you.
"Why would someone swap one good idea for ten bad idea?"
This is answered in the FAQ. You get 4 from the top rated ones. Chances are if you haven't worked on your idea by now, you probably won't do it at all. Share your idea and you might get one or more that you will work on. Even if you don't get an idea you think it's "good" you might get inspiration from them or put a twist on these.
"What do you plan to do with "all" the ideas?"
Same as everyone else who submits an idea: get inspiration.
"Would you post answer to your own questions for your own site?"
I don't understand the purpose of your question.
The purpose of the question, "Would you post answers for your own site?" - being I don't understand and/or would be interested in the answers to the questions before for RealIdeas.site:
This is all covered in the FAQ. Problem: no vetting process on similar sites. Solution: have someone read the ideas. It's free, not meant to make money. I just posted it on HN. I don't see similar sites with a vetting process out there.
I don't understand the negativity. This is a Show HN. And Show HNs don't have to be completely original things that have never before appeared on the Internet.
Why would someone swap one good idea for ten bad idea?
"He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me."
Is there not a "low-tech" solution to this already?
Like an invite-only forum that extends invites to people who share an idea in the public thread? With increasingly more access as users continue to contribute ideas that receive positive feedback from their peers?
So the "compensation" of ideas with other ideas like here seems perfectly reasonable to me and should not be extended or gamified any further.