And they are literally the easiest part of startups.
Today a friend messaged me, “Guys I knew someone would do it. Enjoy life.” and then he quit our little WhatsApp group. Because 9 months ago he had an idea, didn’t take it forward and [fast forward] found a product that did.
If you care about a product — go build it. If someone already has, build it better. Startups aren’t a zero sum society. Business isn’t a cookie cutter fix.
More importantly:
Execution matters way more than an idea.
Ideas come, go, and are “created” all the time.
Don't get caught up on it — don't get emotional. If somebody executed on your idea and you think you can do a better job than they can, compete.
Don’t cry about it. Go do the damn thing.
How often do you hear, ‘damn, I thought of that first. I knew I should have done it.’
Better yet, how often do you say it?
You're right Uber IS an excellent idea. But, a GPS based hailing system has been a conversation in New York since before I came to life. People have tried similar things — almost all of them flopped.
AirBNB is a spectacular business — but, how many people were doing Bed & Breakfasts and selling their services online before AirBNB? Yes, Amazon is phenomenal — ebay was once cool too.
These are all unicorns.
Unicorns are not the rule, they are very much the exception.
And beyond them being spectacularly successful, look at what it took to make these companies become something. My favorite story is the AirBNB founders’ — they repackaged cereal as Obama O’s for the 2008 election to “make ends meet.”
My point: startups and new business is overwhelmingly challenging. Making an idea, wireframing it, conceptualizing it — that’s easy. Doing the engineering is not even the hard part (but it might be the priciest).
The hard part is when you've got a technology that someone invested their time/energy/money into, now you need to make it succeed.
Some insights from my experiences working with M/IG on Start-Ups:
- Pick ideas that you are passionate about. Do them.
- To scale, do unscalable things.
- Don’t be emotionally attached to ideas.
- Someone ‘‘made’’ your idea? Too bad. Keep it moving.
If you feel so passionately about it, do it better.
Get over this notion that you are building exceptional brand new things or worse, that you are a goldmine of unique ideas. All of human growth and creation is predicated on what came before it. You are apart of that cycle. The best way to succeed is to be apart of it and nurture what’s around you — creating better experiences for people.
