I don't agree. I think they are somewhat independent. Of course you have to be very careful that you don't take a bad startup idea and do it simply because you want to do a startup, but IMHO startup desire is often and important pre-requisite for doing anything with your idea. I've know plenty of people (myself included) who had good ideas at times when they didn't have the desire to execute on them, and they are just a fun lunch conversation and nothing more. But when you have that backing desire and the right idea comes to you that you believe in, the magic can happen. With a truly great idea sometimes the desire can follow the idea, but that in my experience is the exception rather than the rule.
In theory you are right, but in reality, when you are faced with multiple choices of startup ideas, shouldn't this be a major factor on deciding which one to act on?
Wanting to do a startup without first having an idea always seems completely backwards to me. Ideas should precede the desire for a startup. You should want a startup because you have an idea you feel strongly about, not the other way around. Otherwise this tends to entail the wrong incentives.
Well, I could argue (and will) that the two are not mutually exclusive. Startups that think at least a wee bit about how to build a business may earn themselves more runway and hence have higher chances of ultimately building something users will love.
I think it varies from case to case. I wouldn't generalize it.There have been cases where things which started as a side project at a startup have become their main product.
At the same time there have been cases where startups didn't take off because of focusing on too many things.
So I think it's always better to work on complimentary ideas which might blend well together. Working on totally unrelated ideas at the same time would spoil the show. Again, I might be totally wrong too.
The way they manage startups, yes. It's however very difficult to ideate so many (which these guys don't), but giving shape to a couple of ideas and managing them independently like these guys do is not impossible it seems.
Yeah, not disagreeing. But the way I interpret the conclusion of this story, is that this wasn't a particularly startup friendly idea. I'm sure it's somewhat salvagable with the right strategy.
My greater point is that ideas set the boundaries for what's possible in execution, which in turn means ideas are critical. If they were unimportant a shit idea would have little impact on the outcome, which is clearly not true. They could still be "overrated" though, but then we should use that language.
Yes. I realize that what I wrote there is not always the case. You are right about the two conflicting advices for startups.
In a perfect world, people will want to use products I am passionate about building. But since that is rare, I think we need to find balance between what our hearts tell us to build and what people need.
Maybe the safe balance is, as you say, being passionate about making our own things work.
I completely disagree with the theory "Startup = Idea".
My counter argument is:
"Good Ideas Grow On Trees"
Working with a startup myself, I can clearly see why Paul Graham nailed it down to "growth" and not "idea".
The "idea" part of an startup is the easy one. I scientifically researched the topic 'innovation capability' and 'innovativeness' of organizations and the crucial part is not to come up with an idea. As said "good ideas grow on trees". The hard work is the execution of an startup idea to get "growth".
The main difference between startups is not their idea, but their growth. Many people can come up with a new startup idea in days, maybe even with a new idea within minutes. But it can take years to bring an idea to success.
There are endless startup ideas. Even the idea newness, how radical new a startup idea is, is not the main aspect of an startup. Again the main difference between startups is if they can execute the idea and get growth.
For example with our startup we were the first to hit a large, untapped or underserved market. But the lack of execution and growth was what killed it. There are always other people who sooner or later have a similar idea. The main difference again is which startup executes the idea the best, the fastest and gets the most growth.
I've heard multiple times that for a startup to succeed, it needs an idea, a great team to execute it and funding, and that it is enough to have two out of these three. Invariably, the people that say the latter are the ones that have no ideas.
I'm with you. But this is a matter of personality and preference. It's not that startups are objectively better or worse -- it's that startups have different tradeoffs.
Both points-of-view are a little one-sided (although martin explains why), but yours is too aggressive.
Vision and execution together give the value, not one or the other. That's why YCombinator and PG focus so much on the team: you need complementary skills.
While I can't fully agree to "ideas worth nothing, execution is 100%", the fact is people come up with your idea independently. The value of it will be show by the ones who execute it.
This "you are easily replaceable" thinking is probably the worst way to think of getting into a startup or any kind of business partnership.
To not make this any longer: startups are like a marriage. Is your wife (/husband) easily replaceable?
I think it comes down simply to: don't set out to make a startup. That's the wrong mind set. You shouldn't be creating a startup for the sake of creating a startup. You should be setting out to solve a problem, and somehow happen to turn that into a startup along the way.
My comment is based on how easily I understood the two projects at a first glance and user feedback I saw. I'm not claiming one is more financially viable over the other, I'm just saying one seems more inspired by the other.
Inspiration through need is organic and genuine - he needed something, he built it, and other people want it. That's been the essence of startup culture from the beginning.
If you are building such things because it's what you want to create, sure, but if you're doing that because you are just looking for something that will grow, that is a fairly unrewarding strategy for doing a startup imo.
That's a thin argument, because it really depends on what the startup does. There are plenty of turn-and-burn startups that have become mission-critical for other startups, I'm sure.
As a counterpoint, the founders of Thumbtack started a startup before they had an idea, picked a very "derivative idea" and still did (and are doing) pretty well. If I had to quantify the motivation of the early team, it was much more about the company being successful than everybody being super passionate about the idea. As long as you can out-execute your competitors and people want your product, it doesn't really matter what your motivation is.
The idea is merely a seed that may or may not grow into something bid. For a great tree to grow out of the seed, many things are needed (although a great tree cannot be grown out of seed of some random weed no matter how hard someone works on it).
Everyone has ideas, but just a small fraction of startup attempts are successful. There's so many ways things can fail in startup even if the product/service/SaaS concept was good. Quality execution is what makes or breaks a startup even if idea is mediocre.
One should not worry about copycats, as they will be some steps behind in building a product and will primarily be able to copy externally visible aspects of the business.
Chances are, someone somewhere had the very same idea and failed to become rich anyway.
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