Ask HN: Any room in the startup world for an ideas man?

[netconnect]

Is there any place in the world of startups and online businesses for an ideas man? I don't just mean scribbles on napkins, I mean well thought out and researched plans for online services, bundled with charismatic presentations and an analysis of the current market.

I am currently working on the skills I need to bring these ideas to life, but being realistic it will probably be some time before I can attempt even the most simple of them, with or without a partner.

Sitting on my laptop are about 15 of these ideas (plans, whatever you would like to call them), each one is the product of a lot of work and the source of much pride. It would upset me to see even one of these ideas, independently thought of by someone else, come to life as a profitable business. I ask you guys, what should I do with them? Let people read them on some sort of website? Try to market them to someone with the skills and resources to bring them into the world?

Honestly, is there anything I can do with them?

[jacquesm]

Sure there is a place for that ! Go to a bank, borrow the $ or mortgage your house, then hire a team to build one of your plans, make it big and use the proceeds to execute the rest of your plans.

That's how everybody else does it. Other than that ideas are two a penny, plans are great but executing them is where the work is and where the money is made. You can have all of my 'good' ideas for free... I value them at exactly $0, which is as good as any other idea/plan.

By the time that you can prove that an idea has legs it should not be too hard to get it funded. Once you've successfully done one next ideas are easier.

[timwiseman → jacquesm]

Excellent point. The implementation is the hard part.

Furthermore, it is very hard to actually know which ideas are good until implemented, and even with truly great ideas a bad implementation will destroy them while a good implementation can make a mediocre idea successful.

I hesitate to suggest this, but if the ideas are truly original and tie into some concrete product or business product then you could try patenting them. Doing this will require you to invest some real time and money, but nowhere near as much as implementation. That patent would then have some value to a startup looking to implement an idea similar to that so you would be bringing something to the table if trying to join that startup or you could try selling it outright to the startup.

I certainly would never recommend becoming a patent troll, but holding a relevant patent does give you something to bring to the table while you work out a niche for yourself with the founders (perhaps in marketing and fund raising or handling some of the other business aspects or else learning enough to help with implementation.) If nothing else, I have heard of people using patents as resume bullets for more conventional jobs.

[pbhjpbhj → jacquesm]

"plans are great but executing them is where the work is [...]" True enough, but some people are good at execution and some people are good at ideas. During the execution phase you're going to need more ideas, probably, to get past your MVP and on to a fully rounded product. Reminds me of the postings the other on Word of Goo - the idea was simple, implementing it was quite hard but additional ideas were added all along the way: things that transformed the product.

Ideas possibly are ten-a-penny, good ideas ...? Great ideas restricted to a specific market segment, they've got to be even more rare. PageRank was a good idea, sure without implementation it's nothing, without the idea there's no implementation though.

[jacquesm → pbhjpbhj]

Yes, but just about everybody has ideas. I can't imagine that those that are good at execution do not have ideas.

The original 'apple' was an idea that many had at the time, two guys with the werewithal to go and execute that idea made it big. I'm sure that in the HCC of the time there were 100's if not 1000's of people that had the idea of a (cheap) computer for everybody.

People that have 'ideas' need to be aware of several really important things:

- everybody has ideas, pretty much all the time

- your idea is most likely not even original ("hey, I thought of that long ago!", yes, so?)

- it might be a great idea but it may never fly, to ask others to risk all to implement your idea for a substantial portion of equity while you risk nothing is out of balance.

- those people that 'had ideas' and made it big invariably were also good at execution.

People that 'just have ideas' usually end up in advertising or marketing where 'brain storm sessions' are their way of minting their idea motor, after all, there you get a salary for just having ideas.

The OP asked if there was room in a startup for an idea guy, the answer is really I don't think so, a startup needs one good idea, then execute it properly the rest is implentation. (Ebay : let's put an auction on the web, YouTube : Let's make it easy to post videos, facebook : let's do 'classmates' but much better). After that the execution takes over, that sort of idea you only need one of to have a viable business.

Sure, during the 'execution' phase you'll need more ideas, but those are usually not going to fundamentally change the nature of the business, unless the original idea wasn't very good...

In an incubator though, there is a place for an idea man. That's where there is added value, also if you're good at ideas you may be good at shooting down other peoples ideas before resources are wasted.

[netconnect → jacquesm]

Thanks for the honest response(s). What is this incubator you mentioned? Could you tell me more or link to something that does?

[jacquesm → netconnect]

Well, news.ycombinator.com is the property of exactly such an institution but there are plenty more out there.

Seed capital funds are another possible avenue.

[netconnect → jacquesm]

After a bit of a search around I understand this all much better. Not to mention have a sudden thirst to get involved with that kind of organisation.

I guess I will just release my little plans on HN and enjoy the feedback! Would love suggestions for other places to use my creativity for something worthwhile (for me or a community).

[riffer]

Another element to consider is that sometimes very detailed, thought-out plans are often actually less valuable than tentative, raw ideas. Elaborate plans are brittle because there are many dependencies interwoven into them. Another way of putting that is that there are a lot of implicit assumptions about how the final system will work. But the reality is that there are things that will be unanticipated developments during the actual construction. Some of these will be things that in hindsight should have been anticipated, and others will be things that it really isn't possible to anticipate. In other words, we only really learn what the plan should look like by building.

Building gives us crucial elements of the plan. But there is another essential piece as well. And that is that one person can only figure out so much of how something complicated enough to be valuable should work. This is part of why YC wants multiple co-founders rather than single founders. It's also where you want to get feedback loops working in your favor. So much of life is about feedback loops, whether it is body temperature, or social confidence, or addictive dependencies. You want to get feedback from other people, and the way to do it isn't to show them your ideas, it's to show them the built out manifestation of your ideas, for exactly the reasons in the paragraph above.

One of the many things that makes this startup thing interesting is that for 500 years, specialization has been a trend. Since you only have a few guys in a startup ...

Finally, in terms of working on the skills, why not work on skills by trying to build a straight-forward aspect of one of the simpler ideas? And if this isn't possible because of the nature of the ideas, then the ideas need to evolve to make this possible.

[sidmitra]

>Try to market them to someone with the skills and resources to bring them into the world?

It really isn't the idea, but the execution that's essential.

There have been lots of ideas, which i thought were stupid and too simple to be profitable at that time. But i've seen them grow really popular and profitable.

So i guess you should find someone to work with you on those ideas, and hope for the best. It may turn out that some those ideas become successful, but there's a higher chance that none of them do.

Discuss those ideas on HN, and i'm sure you'll get lots of useful feedback.

[ErrantX → sidmitra]

But many of those ideas are half baked :D it sounds like this guy has got some serious plans/ideas laid down.

That kind of stuff can go far in the right hands.

@OP: How protective are you over the ideas? Posting them to HN will probably find someone to build them. The risk being you might be bypassed in that process. Is there a way to give your knowledge / plan enough value that a would be "builder" wants to work with you?

[sidmitra → ErrantX]

In my opinion, ideas bred in isolation usually need a lot more work, polishing up to actually bring them to fruition.

"Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats." -Howard Aiken (i think!)

[netconnect → ErrantX]

Thats really my problem isn't it - I bring nothing to the table once someone has the plans. I'm a little protective, but I could cope with letting one or two go I suppose. I have only really shared them with non-tech people or my tech friends that are far too lazy or otherwise oriented to ever do anything with them.

[sidmitra → netconnect]

"I have only really shared them with non-tech people or my tech friends that are far too lazy or otherwise oriented to ever do anything with them."

I guess your concern is valid. But, most people are that way, the ones that really are motivated enough to complete a project or build a startup already have their hands full with ideas of their own.

If you have researched your product and have a definite vision of it, then that's what you bring to the table. A stolen idea would look, well.... stolen!

[ErrantX → netconnect]

Im thinking jacquesm is your only real alternative then. Unless you can offer something else like sales expertise etc.

The problem is putting enough info out there to get interest without exposing all of your work.

On the other hand if their left on the shelf doing nothing then, well, that is possibly even worse.

[voidmain]

Publish at least some of them, so others can at least evaluate whether you have _good_ ideas.

You are never going to find anyone who will "buy" business ideas. All the people saying that execution is what matters are right. But the _ability_ to generate good ideas and plans is not unrelated to ability to execute! If your work impresses, you might find a co-founder or an opportunity that will put you on the path to being able to do what you want.

[davidw]

The problem is that ideas are "non-excludable goods":

http://journal.dedasys.com/2007/04/26/ideas-are-worthless