Why do smart founders work on stupid ideas?
It fascinates me to see very smart people work on obviously very dumb ideas. I’ve done it myself. So why do so many of them fall into this trap?
Here are a few reasons I can think of:
- Their intelligence works against them. Precisely because they are smart. They can convince people (including themselves) that what they’re working on is not stupid. I once met with a wise community leader asking him for advice, and for every piece of advice he gave, I replied with a convincing counterargument. He then gave up and told me that my mind is working against me. And so does the mind of a smart person sometimes.
- Hastiness, they are smart and want to do something more with their lives (rightfully so). They settle for the first semi-idea that they see and start working on it without proper research.
- They ignore the current market or products because they think others are not as smart, or not as hardworking as they will be. They may indeed be smarter and more hardworking but it doesn't matter how hard you work on a stupid idea, you cannot make something bad into a successful startup.
- They've always been successful, so they will succeed this time as well. Because they’ve never experienced massive failure, they cannot fathom that if they keep working on the "stupid idea" it will lead to failure. You cannot truly be massively successful until you've experienced massive failure. It need not be you who has massively failed. You just need to see it up close and personal so that you truly understand and observe the consequences of failure. A healthy dose of fear of failure is good. It can motivate you, and keep you on your toes and your eyes open for signs that you might be doing something stupid. So long as that fear is not paralyzing, it's not bad to have it.
- Stubbornness, the two-edged sword. When you're working on something great, it's an amazing quality to be stubborn. But it helps to be stubborn when you have evidence that what you're working on is great and people really need it. If you see resistance, but you know (backed with evidence) that you're building something good, it’s good to be stubborn. This is not the case when you're stubborn because you like, or enjoy the without evidence that people need it. I asked Weiwei Duncan (co-founder, Bankjoy) how they persisted despite getting 100 rejections from investors (after 100 meetings!), she said because we saw that our existing users were absolutely in love with our product. But others did not see that and that was our evidence. Smart people will always come up with stupid ideas and work on them. The trick really is to realize that you are working on a stupid idea sooner rather than be stubborn.
- Isolation. If you do not get feedback for your product, your mind will echo itself exaggerating and dreaming up a whole world for it. But reality hits and it hits hard. Better you get feedback from everyone you can than to stay in your own mind growing an imaginary product.
What did I miss?
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there is fine line between smartness and hubris...
Eh well define "smart" please )) Because if you define it as "not spending time on obviously bad ideas that won't lead to any good results" then they are not smart. But just sayin', some of the huge businesses nowadays went through a phase where pretty much everyone thought it was a bad idea.
My observation is that people whose ideas were ridiculed despite being good ideas were always because the ridiculers did not see the evidence that the founders were seeing. Usually, founders have exposed some evidence that keeps them going. But without evidence, it's very likely just wishful thinking.
I don't know what you are talking about, Nose Push Ups was a brilliant idea. The users were too dumb to use it properly of course.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=air.com.KalromSystems.NosePushUps
I am not sure how to respond to this. Are you sure it's fine to go in this direction of thinking? "users were too dumb to use it properly"? Isn't it a bad fit if users don't use it by definition?
It's was a joke... :-)
I might be in 2.
It's also entirely possible one of my first idea's was just fine.
You got me at number 2 big time bro....
I feel for this trap! Great post btw :)
Thanks, @LouTromans. I've been training myself to stay away from stupid ideas. But found one of the reasons was hastiness. Be careful, don't let this hurt you.
One thing that's related to this is that it can cause Schelp Blindness because I'm hasty, I look for things that are (or seem to be) easy to build.
Good luck bro.
Bro that was one of the best reads ever mate. Thank you so much mate.
That was a pleasure.
This is a great insight!
There are a few reasons why smart founders might choose to work on what some people might consider to be "stupid" ideas:
Finally, the founder may simply be a risk-taker who is willing to try something new and different regardless of whether it is considered to be smart or stupid.
Indeed!
But pursuing a bad idea blindly results in horrible failure. Gives me the shivers just thinking about it.
This comment was deleted 3 years ago.
Spot on. People kept on telling me my ideas were stupid, up to the point some of them succeeded.
A lot of things have a market nowadays.
Okay, maybe "stupid" was not the right word to use here. I wrote this in a hurry, I could've written it better. Not claiming I or anyone has a magic ball to see the success or failure of an idea. But there are plenty of bad ideas and plenty of smart people working on them. I myself (smart or not) have worked on what seemed to be good ideas and turned out to be bad/stupid ones :), just thought I'd share my learnings here. Your comment is valuable input.