Hello, the idea matters most.

Elon Musk, one of the richest man and most successful man alive, has more than half a dozen of high-flying companies under his belt. Was it the ideas or execution that got him there?

Ideas don’t matter, execution is everything.

Man, I used to think that was true for so many years.

To be frank, when I first entered the startup scene a decade ago, I truly believed that ideas were everything.

A good, well thought-out idea can change the world.

The idea has to be unique, powerful, mind-blowingly amazing that makes everyone go “woah, why didn’t I think of that?!”.

Then over the years, as I met more founders, learnt from wiser mentors and educated myself running my own startup, execution seemed to matter more.

You probably heard of it too.

There are no truly original ideas today, everything is a rehash from something already done or thought up by someone smarter out there.

Australian-founded startup Fast ceased operations, just a year after raising $131 million. Execution matters when you are in a highly competitive market, after raising so much money.

Execution is what separates men from boys, great startups from good startups, unicorns from zombies.

To some extent, it is invariably true.

But keep in mind, there are always exception.

I feel that execution is critical only AFTER the idea you have is well thought-out, unique and amazing.

No execution in the world can save a bad, stinky idea.

No execution in the world can help you if your startup idea suck.

Execution only works well when there is product-market fit.

That’s why you see VCs pouring money into startups that are seemingly the clones of other already successful or well-funded startups.

The presumption of product-market fit spurs the market to believe that the idea already works.

So if you are working on a truly novel idea that aims to solve a problem no one else is tackling, you won’t have PMF yet.

Without PMF, we cannot intelligently speak about execution being the limiting factor to your startup’s success.

Idea vs Execution: which matters more?

So does idea or execution matter more?

I say its more chronologically linear than subjectively comparative.

You need a great idea first before execution can matter.

If you have PMF, execution beats idea.

If you don’t have PMF and working on something novel, the idea is definitely more important that execution.

So how do we come up with a great ideas?

Generically speaking, there are 2 ways to come up with great startup ideas.

The first is when you try to come up with as many ideas as possible and see what sticks.

That is where Paul Graham’s lore works best, speedy iteration, go outside to speak with your customers and move on to something else quickly if it fails.

Paul Graham said that execution is what separates startups from growth and death.

As you can imagine, this has a much lower success rate.

The second is to have deeper experience in a field to see the problems and come up with real solutions that can work, which typically requires some years of work experience and domain knowledge.

This has a higher chance of success and most unicorns are like that.

That is why VCs love backing founders with good backgrounds, especially those with relevant, deep-rooted experiences in the field they are starting up in.

In short, if you wish to start something and ensure the highest chance of success, go work a few years in a field you truly care about and gain deep-rooted expertise in it.

Or take the other route and come up with as many ideas as you possibly can, and keep validating, iterating and improving it over time.

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Which matter more?

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