[wccrawford]

I think you de-stress the 'having an idea' too much. Having a truly great idea -will- attract a co-founder. Well, if they hear it. It's not a magic spell.

Also, being the 'idea guy' might be over-rated, but being the 'vision guy' is definitely the bee's knees.

At a previous company, 1 man was the vision behind the entire product. I can't tell you how many hour-long meetings were ended in 5 minutes when he showed up and made it all clear. (This was after things got really busy and cloning him started to seem like a good solution.) You could bring any question about the direction of the product to him and he would have a good, clear answer.

Without him, I really doubt the company would have been a success.

[tyng]

Thanks for your comment wccrawford. The other day I was thinking very hard about why I admired a former colleague of mine so much but couldn't pin it down to something concrete. Reading your comment made it suddenly all clear - it was the vision. Just like how you described it having the "vision guy" in any meeting cuts out a lot of unnecessary crap and made the team focused. It's very hard to understand or even describe how powerful this is unless one has experienced it first hand. Lucky me!

[lutorm]

It's true that those people are valuable. But would you really believe that this guy was the "vision guy" if he'd just said so? The guy in your story did earn it, so it kind of affirms the OP.

[wccrawford]

Would you believe I was a programmer if I just said so?

Only if the answer didn't matter. Which is the way it should be. And just like anything else, the only way to prove is to do. It didn't take long to see that he had a clear vision of the product and its destination.

He never identified himself as the idea guy, or anything like that. He actually self-identified as a sales guy. (And he was, too.) But if all he did was bring vision to the table, he still would have been invaluable.

[lutorm]

I don't disagree with you. I'm just pointing out that there's a difference between being "a guy with an idea" and being a guy with a proven record of providing ideas. The latter definitely exist and are valuable, but I did not get the impression that post was trying to say anything to the contrary.