Tell HN: Don't worry about people stealing your ideas

7 points·raganwald··6 comments

"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 Aitken

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Hmmm... I'm seeing a quote, but not following how that proves nobody will steal my ideas.

Doesnt say nobody will steal your ideas, it says not to worry about it.

Good ideas are all over the place. It is implementing them that is hard, time consuming, and valuable.

I have heard about this. All the obviously good ideas have already been implemented, and others find your not-so-obvious ideas hard to understand. While this makes perfect sense, there is a chance that the people who get to know of your secret idea will understand it very quickly, and proceed to work on it.

The other advise about hiding ideas, which has nothing to do with this quote, is that its the execution of the idea which matters, not the idea itself, which is also very good advise. But again, someone else who steals your idea may be in a position to execute it better than you (more funding, more resources)

Meh. That's not entirely true. When you're starting a company you can easily feed your existing competitors good ideas that they can act on if you haven't launched yet. Your existing competitors are probably in a much better position to evaluate your idea and may execute it more quickly than you can.

The bigger those competitors, the slower they are going to react. It is extremely rare for a large competitor to even acknowledge your existence for months, then they form a committee to analyse your product/service and make a recommendation, etc.

Your best bet is to make your business an attractive target for acquisition. That way you cash out early on the basis of huge potential future revenue.

Rinse and repeat ...

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