Ideas alone aren’t enough
I’m not sure where this concept came from, that many people seem to share, that there are companies (or venture capitalists) lining up just to pay you for an IDEA.
I work at a university, in an office where we encourage entrepreneurship and innovative thinking by helping students (and others) figure out how to make an idea happen.
So we focus a lot on ideas. BUT — and this is a theme that has been cropping up around me lately — having a great idea isn’t enough.
Every week someone walks into our office, not necessarily saying, but I can tell that they’re expecting, after they have revealed their great idea for some improvement on modern life (that we’ve had to assure them won’t be stolen *sigh*), that we will say to them, “Let me introduce you to Company X, who would love to give you a million dollars for that untested, un-prototyped, un-thought-through idea that you just came up with this morning in the shower.”
As a colleague in the entrepreneurial-help-space said in a speech recently, “People are coming up with ideas all the time. The people who win are those who IMPLEMENT their ideas the best, not necessarily the one who had it first.” (Réka Barabas, Bad Girl Ventures Northeast Ohio)
This is why being an entrepreneur is so difficult, and why not everyone who has a great idea becomes an entrepreneur: it’s the implementation that gets you the gold, the struggle of figuring out and working hard to actually make your idea a reality. And this IS a struggle. There is an abundance of articles out there about the actual time and energy spent by all of the “overnight successes” to get where they are.
If you have what you think is the next best idea, please read those first, then come see me if you’re still willing to try and make it happen.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to talk anyone out of trying — I am an entrepreneur, too, and I love encouraging people to go after their dreams! And there is plenty of help and support out there for you along the way, but YOU have to do the work. Nobody else is going to take your idea and do it for you (well, if they do, you won’t be getting any money or glory out of it).
But please, I want you to go in with a little bit more of a realistic picture of what this journey will feel like. This is not a road for the faint of heart.
I liken my role as a venture advisor to that of a skydiving safety officer — I’ll help make sure you have a working parachute, the information you need to not freak out too much on the way down, and even give you a little push if you need it, but YOU are the one jumping out of the plane.
No guts, no glory, as they say.
