February 4, 2009 at 18:36What to do with a great idea?
For a long time one question torments me. I hurt him indirectly in my “startup” notes, starting with “ Crooked mirrors of a business plan ” and “ Start-up or down ”, and ending with “ Flying in a dream and in reality ”.
This question, like everything that I reflect on in this series of notes, has been passed through my own experience of walking through startup torments. Therefore, I would not want to illustrate again the problem that will be discussed here with my projects. And here, quite by accident, one user Habrahabr came to my aid with a very impressive pseudonym BillGates.
In comments on my last “cloudy” article, BillGates asked my opinion about the prospects of one of his ideas. Since the discussion was open, I think that I have the right to refer to my counterpart (I quote verbatim):
“How difficult is it to raise my service like Amazon.com AWS or Windows Azure? Suppose there is a big interesting socially significant project that does not draw a budget of $ 50k for hosting, but wants to attract the help of its users with their computers. Is it possible to organize a project like SETI, but only applicable to hosting? ”
I beg the readers of this article of mine not to start discussing the technical details, originality, feasibility and the problem of monetizing the idea of Habravian Bill Gates. Let me remind you again that I brought his question only to illustrate what I want to say. We assume that the author of this concept has provided you with all the evidence of the vitality of his proposal. So, ...
In a very generalized form, the classical sequence of stages through which any future Bill Gates should go can be represented as : (1) an idea, (2) a team, (3) BP + TK, (4) investment, (5) implementation, (4) implementation and, perhaps, (5) sale of a business.
But tell me what to do with your idea already to our "Bill Gates"? After all, after a short discussion, he and I came to a general and quite unambiguous conclusion that only the giants of the IT market can do the same. No author of the idea, be he even seven spans in the forehead, no arbitrarily powerful team of any startup can do the cloud crowdsourcing a la Torrent. Even the most ideal business plan with the most magnificent monetization concept will not help him here.
So, to your main question ...
What can be advised to the author of a “brilliant” idea, which theoretically can “turn the world around” (or even a very small part of this world), if he has quite acceptable initial components in terms of items 1-3, but he very well realizes that for him it is unbearable? The reason for the "deadlift" in this case does not matter. The above example is just an illustration of one of the options.
“Ordinary” investors, not to mention the so-called business developers, will torture the author of an overwhelming idea with axioms like “ easier, faster, cheaper, ” with any of the options , but they won’t give money anyway. And he’ll do the right thing that they won’t give it ...
So what is the author to do with an impossible idea?
In abridged version, the text that you just read was very actively discussed(more than 120 comments) Start-up community in professionali.ru. And you know, with almost zero result. Basically, general maxims are tips from the ABCs of startup businesses, which you can easily find in any textbook and on any web resource devoted to this topic. As soon as I used the example in one of my final comments to clarify what I mean by an “overwhelming idea”, most of the participants immediately shut up. It is difficult to discuss specifics, which, well, does not fit into the Procrustean bed of classical schemes. In general terms and with all the known axioms, one won’t get away with this.
The example that I gave to my interlocutors was somewhat, if I may say so, impersonal. I did not want to reduce the conversation to technical details, although already in the course of the discussion a description of a few more overwhelming ideas appeared.
However, the dry residue, or, as the Americans like to say, the “bottom line” still showed up for me. Though very indirectly, but manifested. What conclusions did I draw from the conversation? Again, they were very actively discussed already in my other speech at professionali.ru. My second speech is called. How to sell a great idea? ". You can read it there and even join the discussion. However, this can be done even faster on my iTech Bridge blog, which publishes the full version of the note , the first section of which you have already read. By the way, during the discussion, the “professionals” were presented with six “unbearable ideas”, one of which, codenamed “exchange of ideas” at any time, may turn out to be quite uplifting ...
PS I’m posting similar versions of the note in different places at the same time. I combine business with pleasure - I’m exploring expediency and looking for mechanisms for organizing cross-discussions.
PS2 I recently received a letter from one of my habrachiteli who wrote me felts sincerely, felts with a mockery: " I consider it my duty to express my gratitude to you for your ideas presented in the" intelligent web "blog, because most likely I will use some of them expressed in, I'm sure, the legendary post “my space I'm looking for. "So, if someone suddenly sees again in this article quite uplifting ideas for himself, I give them to my readers only for thanks :).
So, the full text of the note ....
This question, like everything that I reflect on in this series of notes, has been passed through my own experience of walking through startup torments. Therefore, I would not want to illustrate again the problem that will be discussed here with my projects. And here, quite by accident, one user Habrahabr came to my aid with a very impressive pseudonym BillGates.
And sees an eye ...
In comments on my last “cloudy” article, BillGates asked my opinion about the prospects of one of his ideas. Since the discussion was open, I think that I have the right to refer to my counterpart (I quote verbatim):
“How difficult is it to raise my service like Amazon.com AWS or Windows Azure? Suppose there is a big interesting socially significant project that does not draw a budget of $ 50k for hosting, but wants to attract the help of its users with their computers. Is it possible to organize a project like SETI, but only applicable to hosting? ”
I beg the readers of this article of mine not to start discussing the technical details, originality, feasibility and the problem of monetizing the idea of Habravian Bill Gates. Let me remind you again that I brought his question only to illustrate what I want to say. We assume that the author of this concept has provided you with all the evidence of the vitality of his proposal. So, ...
In a very generalized form, the classical sequence of stages through which any future Bill Gates should go can be represented as : (1) an idea, (2) a team, (3) BP + TK, (4) investment, (5) implementation, (4) implementation and, perhaps, (5) sale of a business.
But tell me what to do with your idea already to our "Bill Gates"? After all, after a short discussion, he and I came to a general and quite unambiguous conclusion that only the giants of the IT market can do the same. No author of the idea, be he even seven spans in the forehead, no arbitrarily powerful team of any startup can do the cloud crowdsourcing a la Torrent. Even the most ideal business plan with the most magnificent monetization concept will not help him here.
So, to your main question ...
What can be advised to the author of a “brilliant” idea, which theoretically can “turn the world around” (or even a very small part of this world), if he has quite acceptable initial components in terms of items 1-3, but he very well realizes that for him it is unbearable? The reason for the "deadlift" in this case does not matter. The above example is just an illustration of one of the options.
“Ordinary” investors, not to mention the so-called business developers, will torture the author of an overwhelming idea with axioms like “ easier, faster, cheaper, ” with any of the options , but they won’t give money anyway. And he’ll do the right thing that they won’t give it ...
So what is the author to do with an impossible idea?
In abridged version, the text that you just read was very actively discussed(more than 120 comments) Start-up community in professionali.ru. And you know, with almost zero result. Basically, general maxims are tips from the ABCs of startup businesses, which you can easily find in any textbook and on any web resource devoted to this topic. As soon as I used the example in one of my final comments to clarify what I mean by an “overwhelming idea”, most of the participants immediately shut up. It is difficult to discuss specifics, which, well, does not fit into the Procrustean bed of classical schemes. In general terms and with all the known axioms, one won’t get away with this.
The example that I gave to my interlocutors was somewhat, if I may say so, impersonal. I did not want to reduce the conversation to technical details, although already in the course of the discussion a description of a few more overwhelming ideas appeared.
How to sell a great idea?
However, the dry residue, or, as the Americans like to say, the “bottom line” still showed up for me. Though very indirectly, but manifested. What conclusions did I draw from the conversation? Again, they were very actively discussed already in my other speech at professionali.ru. My second speech is called. How to sell a great idea? ". You can read it there and even join the discussion. However, this can be done even faster on my iTech Bridge blog, which publishes the full version of the note , the first section of which you have already read. By the way, during the discussion, the “professionals” were presented with six “unbearable ideas”, one of which, codenamed “exchange of ideas” at any time, may turn out to be quite uplifting ...
PS I’m posting similar versions of the note in different places at the same time. I combine business with pleasure - I’m exploring expediency and looking for mechanisms for organizing cross-discussions.
PS2 I recently received a letter from one of my habrachiteli who wrote me felts sincerely, felts with a mockery: " I consider it my duty to express my gratitude to you for your ideas presented in the" intelligent web "blog, because most likely I will use some of them expressed in, I'm sure, the legendary post “my space I'm looking for. "So, if someone suddenly sees again in this article quite uplifting ideas for himself, I give them to my readers only for thanks :).
So, the full text of the note ....