[JohnFen]

I usually say "ideas are a dime a dozen."

What I mean by this is that so many people starting tech businesses get really hung up on "protecting their idea" so it won't be "stolen" by others. But what makes an idea valuable isn't the idea, it's the execution. These people are worrying too much about the wrong thing.

I don't mean that ideas are worthless. Everything we create starts with an idea.

[basch]

And this is where I disagree. The inability to execute on a good idea doesn’t mean that the idea creator isn’t the best person to shape the idea. The idea may be more than a one sentence pitch and instead an entire vision.

The one sentence summary of the idea may be a dime a dozen, but that’s only because the listener is discounting the rest of the idea as not having any value, or that the one sentence pitch is a common idea, and the rest of the vision is unique and special.

The team needs to be able to execute, not the individual. If an idea person is both good at creating a succession of ideas and discarding bad ideas, why shouldn’t that a) have worth and b) be respected enough that they are compensated for their talent. Don’t do for free…

I have a good 10+ fairly complex product ideas, that I don’t see envisioned elsewhere. If they are a dime a dozen, why don’t I see other people coming up with them? Are they bad ideas or are they unique ideas that maybe are special. Maybe we will never know. Maybe everyone who doesn’t have ideas wants to convince others their ideas are worthless so they give up and share them.

[JohnFen]

I don't think we actually disagree, honestly. I think we're just looking through different lenses.

> The idea may be more than a one sentence pitch and instead an entire vision.

Yes, the idea has to be fleshed out in order to be ready to start executing it.

I never meant to imply the idea creator wasn't the best person to do this, and I never meant to imply we were talking about an individual.

[basch]

I think the ideas are worthless and a dime a dozen without execution has created a dismissive attitude. Everyone needs to be an engineer or lender to contribute.

Why would an engineer want to pair with somebody and “do all the work”?

Part of executing is looking at what features or decisions similar failure made, and righting the ship on the next go around.

Where is the idea person college course? MBA? Some kind of strategy?

[JohnFen]

The point I'm making with "dime a dozen" isn't to diminish the value of ideas, it's to stop people from valuing ideas above other things that are equally important.

I still don't think we disagree. But perhaps we're addressing different audiences. You are concerned with people who undervalue the role of idea developers, and I am concerned with addressing people who value the idea itself over the development of the idea.

I've seen many startups die because of getting that wrong.

> Part of executing is looking at what features or decisions similar failure made, and righting the ship on the next go around.

Yes, exactly so!