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Comment by jmathai | Hacker News Reader

I realize this is pointed out in the original post but it's important to state for those of us who only read comments and headlines. The longer I do this the more I believe that value isn't created by doing. It's created by selling.

As hackers and engineers the idea of "creating value by doing" resonates with us. We're happy to hole up in a dark room and create. It feels great. Wish I could do that for the rest of my life.

The reality is if you're selling something then that's the only validation you should be looking at to know if you're creating value.

I say this from the perspective of starting up where the point is more easily defined as creating direct economical value.

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The longer I do this the more I believe that value isn't created by doing. It's created by selling.

You can't sell something that doesn't have value to the buyer. Therefore, if someone buys a thing from you, it already had value before you sold it.

But don't get me wrong here, effective sales is an essential part of the value-creation process. It's the other side of the coin. Like the old tree-in-a-forest adage, if someone made a valuable thing and no one bought it, did it really have value? It's hard to say.

Selling something may not create value, but it does realize it: it quantifies the value -- value that already existed -- and turns it into money.

Selling something may not create value, but it does realize it

Well put. What we have to be careful of is being fooled into thinking we're creating value if in the end that value can never be realized. Essentially, not having value.

Selling something may not create value, but it does realize it.

I like PG's distinction of wealth (i.e. value) and money: http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html

So, while selling realizes a monetary gain, it does not necessarily create wealth also.

Here is why I still think it does create wealth:

* there is economic value in allocating resources efficiently

* (non-monetary) user acquisition increases the value of network effect driven products

* money goes to work when infused into a productive company (instead of being idle, money is invested in wealth creating assets)

Selling is a subset of doing. That said, I like your point.

It absolutely should be.

The way I'd put it is that software only matters when someone is using it and getting something they want out of it. Its value starts at zero on release and increases when you get more customers to use it. (Assuming it's not a complete misfeature.)

Creating value is how many people you effect and how strongly you effect them (positively).

Getting money is multiplying value by business.

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