Pmarca: Why brainstorming is a bad idea
blog.pmarca.com
blog.pmarca.com
Basically you always want to generate ideas separately, then expand on them in a group. The reason is that a group approach from the start will squash somewhat crazy concepts before sufficient time has been put into making them practical. As a result, the most creative ideas are shot down before they are given a chance to be refined.
Instead, if you generate ideas on your own you can spend more time on a half-baked concept in order to round out its flaws. Then once its ready, other people can help provide different perspectives on the idea without shooting it down outright.
Therefore I don't see this article as simply advocating a single founder approach. However, co-founders should harden their new ideas on their own before proposing them to each other for critique.
What these groups of co-founders do together is more complicated than just sitting down and trying to think of ideas. I suspect the most productive setup is a kind of together-alone-together sandwich. Together you talk about some hard problem, probably getting nowhere. Then, the next morning, one of you has an idea in the shower about how to solve it. He runs eagerly to to tell the others, and together they work out the kinks. -- Ideas for Startups
All you have to do is tell each other that you're going to meet to discuss the ideas that you've thought up in three hours. The social disincentive of looking pretty lame if you show up with nothing is enough to get people to do it. He's not saying a group of one is better, but the combined individual efforts of a group are greater than when they all think about things together.
Of course you don't do just one or the other because the together/alone pattern repeats itself and there's an opportunity to present new ideas each time the group meets.
I think pmarca's point was that group brainstorming isn't a valuable thing to do. That's not true from my experience. I am a huge fan of avoiding feel-good wishy-washy brainstorming though.
If 'mutual respect' or 'fear of looking stupid' gets in the way of suggesting something while working in a group (as it quite often does) then you need to work on overcoming that fear (individually) and improving your rapport (as a group)
Now if they could repeat the study after having predetermined some criteria to judge the 'best' solution to a problem, my hunch is that they would find that a group with a good rapport (not a bunch of strangers put together) would come up with the better solution (all other things - e.g. familiarity with the problem set, problem solving skills etc being equal between groups). But yeah, it's just a hunch.
Most often, the immediate goal of brainstorming is to come up with as many ideas as possible. Leaders of brainstorming sessions often start by encouraging wild ideas and discouraging the "pruning" that you speak of. In that sense, the number of ideas generated is a logical measuring stick.
The goal is usually to hit an outlier, not come out with the best solution on average. If that is the case, it's better to have more ideas, even if the median idea is worse than the median idea generated by a group.
Wait.. What?
The power of brainstorming is apparent when two people are thinking about something they will both use. If it's directly useful to both of them then two heads are about four times better than one, if not closer to ten times better.
Question for you guys: What is your ideal environment for brainstorming ideas alone? I've found that taking 15 or 30 minutes of quiet time to reflect/brainstorm before going to bed seems to generate the most high-quality ideas, imo.
A more deliberate technique that works for me is having people say "It would be neat if X existed -- but that's not possible." intentionally as a kind of idea challenge game.
The best ideas I've had were solutions to real-world problems or opportunities I noticed while doing real work.
Either that, or it's just that misery loves company. ;-)
Incidentally, apparently that's the reason why collaborative efforts between musicians often don't work out too well. In their own group, they're not afraid to say exactly what they think, or be highly critical when called for, but with a relative 'outsider', mutual respect gets in the way of that.
In any case your hypothetical two co founders could simply brainstorm on their own...
For me, this article confirms what I already suspected. I don't need a co-founder to be creative and productive. It would be nice, but not necessary. You don't have to give up equity just to have a little give and take. A customer, a friend, even a stranger will do. My mind is my "ruby slippers". I've had everything I really need all along.
And, staunch, it is not my experience that "most people won't even try to come up with ideas by themselves". Then again, maybe I'm not "most people". There are so many wrongs and so many opportunities in our field, it doesn't take much to get the juices flowing. Just a little customer interaction or 5 minutes on a bad app, and I have 10 ideas to run with. Which reminds me...back to work.
You should only stop feeling guilty if you think that a co-founder is only good for a source of ideas. A co-founder isn't an idea guy (tho they should have ideas). They are someone who:
-has skills you don't have. -will motivate you. -will make your good ideas better -will produce ideas that you won't
You might be an exception to the rule, but IMHO it's pretty amazing hubris to think that you have all of the ingredients necessary for a successful startup.