YOUR IDEA SUCKS

The iPod was my idea. I came up with it significantly before the launch of the first iPod, and I used to talk about it often when I was critical of portable CD player technology. Same thing with the iPhone, I came up with that in 2001 right after the launch of the first iPod beating Apple's launch by 6 years. I can actually claim the same thing about the whole Apple hit lineup. My streak isn’t even exclusive to Apple, I came up with the idea for tabbed browsing, spam filters, the smart home, mobile-based ride sharing and many others that are currently the foundation of successful tech startups today.

The paragraph above is not some analogy, it is absolutely true and there are basically three types of reactions to it:

1. The skeptical reaction – “if it was your idea, then why aren’t you the CEO of Apple, or Uber, or Nest etc.?”
2. The believer’s reaction – “Wow! You need to get a lawyer and sue those guys, you could get millions! Or billions!”
3. The correct reaction – “Who cares?”

“Who cares” is the correct reaction because the ideas were worthless. Because I am outspoken about the tech sector, and I am a shareholder in a mobile startup (www.imhangry.ca), I get told great ideas for a tech company all the time. There is only one catch, of course, and that is that I have to execute the idea while giving the originator of the idea a small equity stake, or the idea might even be given for free (quite generously). If you are one of those people who think that this is an equitable arrangement, this message is for you.

You probably think that this kind of an arrangement sounds like a reasonable partnership between an idea person and an execution person. I have news for you – we are all idea people. We live in a society with a collective confirmation bias. We often trivialize success and misunderstand failure. The narrative for success becomes a search for a hero and we often attribute it to an idea or a visionary. Failure, on the other hand, infects everything around it as the root cause is passed like a hot potato between ideas to environment to staffing decisions etc. (Note that this method of external attribution, often through media coverage, runs contrary to the proverb "success has many fathers, failure is an orphan").

The truth of the matter is that success is much more complex than either side of the narrative would have us believe. The success or failure of an idea is dependent on an ever growing list of factors of varying importance, and the idea itself falls pretty close to the bottom of that list. Wired.com recently had an article (found here) about how many dot-com failures were actually great ideas. Of course they were, but to say they were great ideas is a loaded statement.

Take an example that everyone is familiar with – Facebook. The so-called “idea” of Facebook was thought of before Facebook, and a million times over at that. Myspace is probably the most cited example as being a Facebook predecessor. You might be tempted to point out that Facebook and Myspace were not really the same thing and that Facebook had a cleaner interface, that its growth strategy was smarter etc. and therefore the idea was technically different. But the only reason that we are able to get so granular about Facebook vs. Myspace is because of our intimate knowledge of each product. If we took an example from the wired.com article, say WebVan vs. Amazon Fresh and Instacart, and looked at it with the same knowledge we have of Facebook and Myspace then we would immediately see how the comparison of the two is unfair.  

From the outside, two businesses might seem very similar, but from the perspective of an operator they are likely to be wildly different. Take Uber and Hailo, for example. From an end-user perspective the two ride-sharing companies seem virtually identical. After a little bit of research, however, you will come across the fact that the two have a very different approach in how they enter new markets, deal with regulatory conditions, market the company, deal with their employees and establish partnerships. From an internal view, the disparity between the two would grow even larger. The failure of one of these companies should not taint the ride sharing concept as a bad idea, nor should the success of the companies win the label of “great idea”. The idea is not what makes the company great, what makes it great are all the things that surround and support the idea.

The idea, by itself, is worthless, and there are at least two major facts that show this. First is that virtually all startups pivot because the original concept is simply not working as expected, or a better opportunity arises. This just shows that the original idea is either wrong or not specific enough to create success and the company’s success is more dependent on its flexibility than its original concept.

Second, ideas are given away for free today. If you want to try your hand at a startup but you aren’t sure what you want to do, you can go to various places online, or in your community, to find a startup idea that is up your alley. Ideaswatch.com is one such place online, but you can also check out forums in your area of interest, or network with local entrepreneurs. Chances are that if you’ve thought of it, someone has already tried some version of it, and can impart some relevant knowledge.

The moral here is that if you have a great idea, and you’ve been thinking about how to do it, then by all means, do it! On the other hand, if you simply don’t have the time, knowledge or resources to pull it off and you need to get someone else to do it for you, then I’m sorry, your idea sucks.