On The Pursuit Of Ideas
My good friend and Co-Founder, James, came up with an idea that recently took over the smart phone world and made a bunch of people mega rich. That idea was Pokemon Go, seriously…see screen-grabbed evidence from his iPhone notes below.
If you hadn’t noticed, the problem is, he came up with this three years ago. He talked about it, I remember him doing that much, and me not understanding or caring because he was in his mid-twenties and talking about Pokemon. But he had the energy and the fizz about him, which happens when someone has a good idea before leaping into future and aboard their brand new yacht.
Between us we’ve had a bunch of them. The quick film review site with a memorably filthy name, the bowling alley that’s also a bar and a music venue — we called it The Spare Room, and yeah, a bunch of good ideas…
Okay, so I admit I’m struggling to recall others. The point is, we did nothing about them, or we half did something, we bought a domain and set up a WordPress site and we slowly let things grind… to… a… halt. And expire.
We didn’t plan, we didn’t look at baby step number one; we went straight for the fuck-load of hits and media requests. Granted we were a little bit younger and greener and more likely to get carried away, but the result would always and inevitably be a failed pursuit; a soon to be forgotten idea.
In our line of work we often encounter people who are in the throes of this phase. They’re at the start of something small in real terms, but emotionally and fantastically they’re off into the distance and already muddying the path to even the smallest chance of champagne and high-fives.
In hindsight for us, some ideas were too fantastical, but with others — had we supported and pushed each other as well as been grounded and grinded out the hours — we would have at least given it a shot and known if one, it was even worth pursuing, and two, if we were the ones who could make it happen.
When I first saw James’ post on Facebook and that screen grab of his weird Pokemon idea, I couldn’t believe how identical the note and the real thing three years later are. It made me realise that we shouldn’t dismiss anything, we should test everything, push it and find the time to plan from the ugly ground work up to the even harder… getting the thing off the ground bit.
Because a good or even interesting idea is a dying flame. If you’ve had one you’re lucky and you’re going to need to work like a bastard if you’re ever going to protect it and see something set ablaze because of it.
