Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by ivars 2104 days ago
User mikekchar on the value of ideas:

My advice is to lower the value of ideas. A lot of time people think, "If only I had a good idea I would be successful". You will see other people saying things like, "Buy my good idea!". But really, good ideas are a dime a dozen. Good ideas, bad ideas... it actually doesn't make much difference. What makes the difference is execution and timing.

For things that take a long time, timing is essentially random. The world is chaotic. Had I known everyone and their dog would be locked down in their houses for months on end, I would have built something to cater to them. But of course, there is no way to know. I find it amusing that just before the pandemic there was a thread on HN talking about overvalued unicorns and Zoom was up near the top of the list. What would need to happen to make Zoom a household name, people asked?

To be successful, really what you need is execution and to have the patience to wait until what you are doing is relevant. Of course there is the fear that it will never be relevant. However, if you accept the thesis that the good idea is not valuable in itself, then you realise that it is not really valuable to pivot without a really good reason. A good idea that is never relevant is just as worthless as a bad idea that is never relevant. However, even a bad idea that is executed very well and ready when the opportunity arises can be successful.

4 comments

It can be fun to think of "new" ideas, and then search the Internet for them.

This week, I wanted a handheld device to push buttons and open doors without touching them; found several for sale (though the models without covers seem useless.)

Later I wanted a 3D support structure to fit under a mask and increase its usable surface area; found several for sale.

I use the end of my key to push buttons. A shoulder shove works for pushing doors. If I have to pull occasionally I use my T-shirt to get a grip. If it were a major problem I’d use a glove.
I think I'm fairly creative, but I've only had one or two ideas that weren't reinventions of something someone else had already done. Doesn't matter what it is: software, electrical circuit, some clever mechanical thing, it's almost always already been done. Even if you look at patent grants, almost none of them are truly novel.
So what did you do with those ideas?
One of them costs too much for me to pursue. The other I'm working on as a hobby, but don't expect it to bear any fruit for a couple of years.

My main takeaway though is that an idea doesn't have to be novel for it to be a good idea. Lots of things that were tried and failed could succeed with a new approach. And lots of things that're currently successfully could be redone in a better way.

> 3D support structure to fit under a mask

Wow, I also thought about this idea.

For those who are interested in something like this, you can search for "frame for face mask" on Amazon...

I don't know if you have seen this one: https://bellus3d.com/solutions/facemask.html

*I have no affiliation to the site or map, just remembered a colleague showed me

Isn't this a bit useless? Surgical masks aren't meant to fit well, they're meant to keep your spittle from leaving your face. N95 masks are meant to filter incoming air, and those are made to fit well.
I kind of agree with you. Actually I think it looks more discomforting than just wearing a surgical mask with straps.
Good comment.

Also I don't think most people can really tell when an idea is good. Seemingly good ideas fail all the time and if it was easy to determine which ideas are good everyone would be successful.

I think the best way to evaluate an idea is to ask if you'd use it yourself. If it solves a problem for you, there will be others that want it - nobody is unique. It's when you think you know how to solve someone else's problems that things go wrong - collaboration is important in that case.
Yes. If my friend had pitched Airbnb or Uber many years ago, I’m sure I would have dismissed them as impossibly risky. Or Snapchat as only useful in niches. Or Peloton as way overpriced compared to exercise videos on YouTube.
> Also I don't think most people can really tell when an idea is good.

My heuristic is that if you google it and someone is doing it successfully, you know you had a good idea, and it makes me happy. If you google it and nobody is doing it, it is a bad idea for some reason that’s not obvious.

And if you see $100 on the road, leave it there, it's fake or someone would have picked it up first.
For those that don't get the reference, it is to this joke about 2 economists:

Two economists walk down a road and they see a twenty dollar bill lying on the side-walk. One of them asks “is that a twenty dollar bill?” Then the other one answers “It can’t be, because someone would have picked it up already,” and they keep walking.

All the times I have seen $100 on the road, it has turned out to be an advertisement i.e. fake. 50% of the time I have found money on the road, it has been my own.

I put coins on the road for people to find, because I remember the joy of discovering a coin as a child.

Overall it works as a joke, but fails as a metaphor for me!

This is an excellent comment, it should be noted given the thread.
Something that bugs me about this metaphor is the foregone conclusion that the thing on the ground is identifiably a $100 bill. Clearly anyone seeing a great idea for the taking will do so, but the discussion is really more comparable to seeing a bit of trash on the ground and pondering whether it might be money or not.

The issue is having ideas but not the ability to determine whether they are good ideas nobody has capitalized on yet or bad ideas that others have abandoned. I find myself asking this question often about a lot of things -- am I somehow so fortunate or clever that I've conjured a great idea, or do I lack the clarity of thought or prior knowledge to understand why my idea is bad, useless, or somehow infeasible?

FWIW, the quote about money on the ground initially comes from a critique on the efficient market hypothesis, not commentary on the nature of ideas. So it's expected for there to be analogical disconnect here.

For it to work as intended, you'd have to construct (or buy into) some framework for an "efficient marketplace of ideas."

IMO a good idea is not only one that can be successful, but also one that can be accomplished.

For example, I had the idea of mobile payments almost 20 years ago, way before smartphones. This is extremely popular today, but even if I had had the technical skill to pull it off (I didn't) this is only the kind of idea a giant company could have considered.

Good ideas are not universally good.

the founder of 'peloton' is an epitome of this, becoming a billionaire over the course of the pandemic.

https://www.businessinsider.com/peloton-founder-ceo-john-fol...

I totally agree. It is similar to a post by Derek Sivers, "Ideas are just a multiplier of execution", https://sive.rs/multiply