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.
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.
"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.
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.
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).
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.