Overvaluing My Ideas

When it comes to the world of apps it’s quite common that people value their ideas. It is okay to cherish your idea of a perfect business venture and a technological innovation, but in reality a good idea counts for a tiny percentage in success. Especially when it comes to developing the next Instagram or Whatsapp.

Collective Consciousness

There’s a strange thing about ideas. When you get that spark in your forehead and you come up with something that’s so groundbreaking and crazy and you think it’ll just work, the chances are there are quite many people having the same idea at the very same moment. We can call it a string theory, quantum physics or just a coincidence.

There’s around 7 billion of us on this planet. It’s strange to think that we seem to have a common subconsciousness which makes connections with the variables we have in our mind and comes up with ideas.

“Ideas are worthless, execution is everything”

It might not be that drastic in reality. A great idea is not truly worthless, but it counts for a rather small piece in the puzzle.
When it comes to execution… Well, that truly is everything.

Great Idea is Just a Start

An idea is just a starting point for a great venture. There are several good examples out there.

Take Skype for instance. In 2003 a couple of guys think that it would be cool to phone each other via computers and skip all communication costs. At this time there are actually several such applications on the market. Their idea is not revolutionary, but execution matters. They do it and they succeed.

Now think about Apple. In 2007 there are several smartphones on the market. Blackberry rules USA and Nokia everywhere else. Apple comes out with a much better device and software in it. The idea is not revolutionary but execution matters once again.

If you think about it, this is mostly the case for any successful IT venture we know today, Instagram, Facebook, google. None of them were unique ideas nor first ones on the market but they succeed on how they actually did them.

When You do it, Do it Good!

When you start generating your own (app)ideas, don’t overvalue them. While good ideas are important for a startup, there is just so much more which has even greater importance.

Note to self. Have good initial ideas, but also dive deep into how to execute them.

Image Credit Joey Gannon