Addiction to ideas (2017)
colleenrobb.com
colleenrobb.com
an idea
a good idea
a good implementable idea
a good implementable idea whose time has come
an invention (the concrete verification of an idea)
a design ( a workable invention)
a potential product (reproducible/manufacturable design)
a potentially profitable product
a marketable and profitable product
a marketable, profitable product, backed by money and good luck
To use an example from my industry (video games), a game idea might seem good, implementable, easy to design, marketable and profitable. But in the process of implementing it (even very late sometimes), it might become very obvious to everyone that it's not fun and there's no way to make it fun.
I have also worked in an aviation startup where a software product we built was a good idea and already needed by some clients (govt/military), but there was interest growing in the business market. We developed it, govt started using it (with great feedback), we had enough funding for a few years, and we marketed it enough to start some b2b conversations and see some nice best case scenario financial projections. And it never sold at a price that would have kept the startup in business. We scaled down, founders worked unpaid for a while, and then it was passed on to a university for their students to maintain for experience and to fulfil govt needs. The final earnings from the tech and company sale after all legalese costs: not seven figures, not six, nor five - two. The final verdict for this idea: too ahead of its time for many potential clients who would have probably been late adopters (even if some were extremely eager to adopt immediately).
From my (limited) experience, it takes a lot of time and effort to see flaws with most ideas. I think it's very difficult to evaluate an idea upfront with some kind of rubric, even though many people suggest using theirs. And yours is not a bad rubric - it covers many obvious potential defects with a given idea.
What I wanted to advocate for is little pathfinder "probe teams" that can scout ahead with rapid POCs and find the pitfalls.
I've heard this before from inventors. It's the work you put in to realize the idea, they say. But they're inventors. They have a lot of ideas. Average people don't have a lot of ideas. Can we at least appreciate when we come up with an idea?
I don’t believe quality of ideas is even most useful, but instead your flexibility in refining the idea to pump it through the funnel listed above. Getting attached to an idea, and especially celebrating the having of an idea, is useless.
Numerous metaphors here that others can bore us with, but don’t get distracted by realizing you can think: start actually thinking instead.
I think it’s always a slog that most people aren’t willing to do.
Some truly awful ideas just leapfrog the entire filter chain due to extraordinary luck or the power of relentless marketing money. That's the essence of pop music I guess.
I do all my writing in the open, on GitHub and links are on my profile. I use markdown to write my idea journal. I create a heading for each idea.
If you don't write ideas down, you won't have better ideas that the ideas you did have reveal. We know that many companies pivot or end up doing something they didn't originally intend to. The same is true for ideas. The more you do something the better you get at it.
I am at 725+ computer ideas I enjoy writing about. I'm not the first for them but I enjoyed thinking of them (I didn't read about them elsewhere). I write about Parallelism, multithreaded, software design, software architecture, programming language design, futuristic things software should do.
Ideas are where mathematics, science and theology come from. Someone heard or thought of an idea they like and wrote it down. You benefit from ideas and education everyday. Don't say they're worthless.
I love to create things and think of interesting situations that could potentially take off. The idea itself is thrilling! There's a self fuelling feedback loop.
But I've learnt to temper myself a bit. Great ideas are common, but to even just implement one "fully" will take many years to then sell on to other people and get investments and so on, not withstanding time it takes to maintain. Something I can't balance with a full job and kids. (Funnily enough, my current job is maintaining software for another person's great idea, but less risky, more upfront money, and more focused on what I want to do, so why do I want to do my own?).
I sometimes think I should start my own software shop so that I can action ideas, but realistically this is more risky, not less.
Because I'm staring at screens all day during work hours, I really cannot bring myself to make prototypes. So instead I just look to fill my pen-and-paper journal with ideas and wireframes and things. I'm thinking of getting an eink tablet to digitise the process.
This helps me to get the idea down and out of the system, and then I look at it a bit more objectively and realise it does or doesn't work, or that I wasn't understanding the original problems fully, or that it was a hammer looking for a nail. If anything seems sensible and is low effort I'll do more to validate it, writing down why it might fail.
I think this helps me the most, and I have an index of ideas I can refer back to when I'm out in the park.
Religion in particular feels like a phenomenon built on unchecked optimism. And it has no shortage of waste and grifters, at least IME.
Sometimes you just want to hear someone agree with you. You haven't thought it all out, the idea is in its initial stages and you don't want someone to be a wet blanket, you just want to get it out of your head and see if the person might be able to give you additional info or insights on it. You need a sounding board and a chance to just listen yourself talk. You don't need the person at that moment to start finding holes in a nascent idea. This is what I call affirmation.
The other times, you've got an idea and you're ready to commit to it, but you need someone to play devil's advocate. You want them to sanity check the idea and tell you if they find anything wrong with it. You want them to poke holes in the plan so you don't do something dumb. You appreciate it when they really try to grok what you're saying and look for the problems. I call this confirmation.
Ever get annoyed with your SO, friend or coworker because you're telling them some new idea and they give you the wrong kind of feedback? Maybe they're just too agreeable: "What? I'm agreeing with you." Stop it! I want your honest opinion! "Sounds fine to me." ARRGH! Or the other side, when they immediately jump in with objections: "I'm just saying that it's not realistic..." I know that, I'm just trying to... "And secondly..." Stop!
When someone comes to me with something, the first thing I ask them is what sort of feedback they're looking for. Sometimes they're thinking about investing all their money and need someone to make sure their reasoning is sound. Sometimes they can tell they have a germ of a good idea, but not sure where to take it. Giving the right type of feedback is essential.
This goes for GitHub projects or blog posts and lots of other things as well. Sometimes someone is putting something out there in the spirit of experimentation or brainstorming, other times it's something that is supposed to be a solid foundation or a real product. It's always a good idea when reacting to figure out which stage something is in, and contribute accordingly.
It’s hard to be lost. But less hard than wasting years of your life on a bad idea.
Look at a technology that has had a massive impact on the world: fracking. People pursued that for many years with limited results before they were able to do it successfully/economically.
And now we'd like them to stop, please. Fracking is a terrible idea.
If you take the YC credo, "Build something people want", there are two assumptions that need to be tested. 1) Do people want it and 2) Can you build it? I think that most times it's best to test #1 first.
A landing page will prove people will buy the product.
A prototype proves the product can be built.
The authors misrepresentation of "the next uber" made me laugh. History has shown that living a passionate life pays dividends that are not inferior integers.
Health is a good example of ideas that have the best residuals in life. No mention that 8 hours of quality sleep a night provide more value than tossing and turning.
The author does not appear to be 21st century compatible. Mental illness is at a persons discretion. Not chasing 3rd world goals (mimick/imitation/fake) leaves more capacity for quality time.
Brilliant