I’ve been reading a lot lately on the Internet about how ideas are worthless and execution is everything. Well, bullshit.
Normally I’d sit on the fence and say well it’s a little bit of both: you need a good idea and good execution, but you know what… ideas are everything!
As makers, founders, and entrepreneurs we invest heavily in ideas. Why would we invest in something that was worthless?
Without an idea there is no execution. There is no testing. There are no results to evaluate. It all starts and ends with an idea.
Nobody is going to pay their hard earned money to you for your idea unless you can prove that it works. That’s where the execution comes in, but money isn’t the only way to assign value to an idea.
Ideas are hope. If you don’t like how things work, if you don’t like how something is done now, ideas give you hope that things can change.
Don’t like having to go to the video store, pick up a video, and drive home before you can watch it? What if you could just stream it right to your TV at home?
Don’t like going to the book store to browser a limited selection of books to find your next read? What if you could see a list of every book on a website, and have your selection delivered to your door?
How much is the hope of a better life worth?
There is a lot to be said about motivation. Motivation drives a lot of what we do. Motivation is why we do the things we do.
Motivation is why you’ll find me awake some days at 5am in the morning working on a product. Motivation for me comes from ideas.
How much value can you place on something that drives you to work on it, to use every spare minute in your day to make it a reality.
Although we can start working on an idea alone, it doesn’t take long before we need help from others.
Can you convince others that your idea might work? Can you convince them to give up some of their time to help you?
Idea’s can be a real unifier, bringing together people from all over the world because this idea might seem be crazy, but what if it works?
Yes in some cases the work is done in exchange for some possible future payment, but if you’re idea can convince people to take that risk, how much is that worth?
So yes your idea might not be worth any money, but let us not value everything in money.
There are good idea and there are bad ideas, there are ideas that are worth very little, and there are ideas that are worth everything.
How do you know which ones are which? There is only one way to find out for sure … turn your idea into reality.
.png)
--
This article was originally publish on Medium, read more about my side projects at: Make Side Project