7 Reasons No One Likes Your Ideas | Hacker News Reader

7 Reasons No One Likes Your Ideas

thepeoplebrand.com

12 pointsskmurphy14 comments

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Ideas are nothing - execution is everything.

I disagree. Scientific experimentation is everything.

Putting significant effort into execution of a bad idea is a complete waste of time.

Depends on what you are after.

Very few scientists are rich, and very few businessmen are good at science.

But if the goal is to make money I would pick good execution over a good idea any day. Just look at myspace ;-)

Good execution is important, but only after you have sufficient evidence from a prototype with users that it's worth doing.

Myspace had a very good idea. This is obvious because it had a million copycat sites that were pure knockoffs but still became incredibly rich.

Well tripod did more or less the same 5 years earlier, and had a million copycat sites. What exactly was the great idea that myspace had?

If you read up on myspace history and how they came to dominate the market it is quite obvious that it was by pushing their product relentlessly - not by innovating or having excellent ideas.

Its a good idea because with most other ideas you would have to work much harder to reach the same level of success.

Well that's the most cunning and insightful comment I have read in quite a while.

"because if they had done something else they would have to work harder..."

I give up. I concede. I appraise your superior intellect. I will never be able to give a due answer to that amazing argument.

fucking think.

That's easy to say, but sometimes, ideas do matter.

You always have to convince someone of your idea. If you are working at a startup, you have to convince the customer/user that it's worth the time/money. These rules still apply.

Well look at it this way:

An idea is like a multiplier. In itself it is worth nothing, but if someone with good execution skill can make 1 mill. $ on an idea, and your idea is twice as good (however you define that) then the same guy can make 2 mill. $ going after that idea instead, all other things being equal.

Note though that an idea that is "twice as good is hard to come by, and even harder to sell to the guy that has to execute it - if it isn't yourself.

A lot of companies (amazon for example) have made into the big league without having an idea that is in any way novel but by having great execution skill. The opposite is never the case.

I would suggest that Amazon's great execution is actually the result of continuous experimentation and the accumulation of many thousands of "small ideas." The evolution of their website is famously driven by continuous A/B testing. And I think the S3/EC2 combo may evolve into something quite novel.

Since A/B testing wasn't invented by Amazon it has got nothing to do with ideas. But it does have everything to do with execution.

because they're SOBER.

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