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Comment by Swizec | Hacker News Reader

Why don't we tell people their ideas suck?

Well here you are, talking to somebody who's spent months thinking about something from every angle imaginable. And you've given it five minute's thought. Who are you to say their idea sucks? You know nothing about it.

A much better approach is to ask questions. Don't say "your idea sucks", ask "Do you have any users?", don't say "your idea sucks", ask "What sort of growth have you found?" and so on. Eventually you will hit a question where the person doesn't know the answer. Congratulations, you've just helped somebody improve their idea.

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If I know nothing about it, I'll say so. That said, if it's a consumer-facing idea, I likely have thought about it, at some point, often before some of the people I'm talking to were even in high school. Many ideas keep coming around every few years, and people without any sense of history at all may be doomed to repeat it (instead of potentially avoiding the mistakes of previous efforts in the same area).

There's plenty of things I've missed, and I'm not at all any prescient genius at this, but I've been approached by people with 'great ideas' who 'just need someone to build it for them'.

One example from last fall - I liked the idea, but told them they were going to have lots of legal hurdles with the IP and content, and they assured me they wouldn't. Three months later, they told me they were having legal issues with the IP and content. They could have pressed on, but chose not to, because they wanted to finish up school instead. I think they also realized why this 'great idea' isn't being done - it's not because no one thought about it, or that it was some great insight, it's that it's hard to do because much of the content they want is tied up in legal issues.

But... wow - how about that? I looked at the problem for 5 minutes and saw issues they hadn't seen in 12 months of thinking about the problem. Why is that? Maybe because I've been working professionally for 20 years, and they were still in college? Certainly not claiming I'm smarter or more clever, but simply that sometimes having more experience in some areas lets you see issues that the person hooked on the idea hasn't seen (or doesn't want to see).

Your point about questioning is fine, to a point (no pun). Asking too many leading questions can make you come across like a jerk too.

> can make you come across like a jerk too

Well, yes. Anything you do can make you look like a jerk if you do it in a jerky way.

And as you point out, sometimes you simply have more experience in an area than the founders do. Obviously there are cases where this will happen and you can immediately tell the idea stands on shaky ground.

But in general that's not the case in "Hey I have this cool idea" conversations.

> "Well here you are, talking to somebody who's spent months thinking about something from every angle imaginable." (emphasis added)

Sadly, I don't think this is often the case and it's a difficult thing for anyone to do. You're inherently limited by the angles you can think of (which is why you should get out and talk to people).

You're advice is spot-on though. I've been in a number of conversations where probing with questions and getting very well thought out answers has convinced me that the founder really know's what he's talking about.

> limited by the angles you can think of

Which still falls under "every angle imaginable". Increasing the pool of imaginable angles is of course good, but you won't get there if people say your idea sucks instead of sharing their angles with you.

Yes, I absolutely agree what what you said (though re-reading my previous post, that may not have been clear).

Alternatively, you very well could be wrong, case in points: http://dcurt.is/what-a-stupid-idea

Or very right, see the discussion on that same article: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5636090

Depends on what your view of success and right/wrong is.

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