[bdfh42]

Spot on reply to the question.

If the person with a great idea has something (very) substantial to offer a project based upon it then they are clearly a key component of the idea execution and should not fear discussing the idea with potential partners.

If the idea is all someone has then - frankly - no-one will want to listen to the idea in any case.

[roc]

Absolutely agreed.

If you concede that it's all in the execution and can't make an argument for why you're the right person to see it executed -- then you've already admitted that you have nothing to offer.

Further, the idea of not trying because you're afraid the entrenched interest would crush you if they tried isn't compelling. As said before: it's all in the execution. And what they're executing is as-important as how well they do it. Entrenched interests have resources, but they also have their own overarching business strategies and goals. And those don't always align with "what people really want".

Consider: everyone assumed Dropbox had to worry about iCloud and gDrive. But if neither Apple nor Google are particularly worried about supporting the platform-agnostic, arbitrary folder sync'ing bit that Dropbox does wonderfully, they're not even true competitors. [1]

[1] Google would rather you not use your local storage at all. Apple couldn't care less about clients or API access for Linux/Windows/Android/etc. As it turns out: Dropbox has little to worry about from them.

[its_so_on]

this does not work so well if you're probably about number 500,000 on the list of people worldwide who could best execute it - but if you do it first, you still have a solid chance of publicity and a reasonable shot at making 10x-100x the investment, and maybe more, combined with an almost inability not to at least get bought out by someone more competent for a mild profit (loss if you consider your personal opportunity cost, which an investor doesn't care about). This is a common scenario in my humble opinion.

I'm not saying this should change. When it does, and investors are happy to invest in people who admit they're about #500,000 on the worldwide list of people who can execute on this idea - well, that is so far into a bubble you're almost out of it again.

[roc]

If you've recognized an opportunity earlier than others, you've had more time to think through the problem and its solutions. You've had more opportunity to think about how you can build a business around this solution. And you're probably more apt to forsee further advatanges and problems in that space. Lastly, hopefully, you have a unique take or insight into the problem that sets you apart from a project headed by someone doing a straight-forward implementation of the most obvious solution.

And if you're championing the idea and the need to execute at a certain level, you're clearly among the more motivated and dedicated, to say nothing of everyone else not out trying to make this happen.

These are attributes that do make you compare more-favorably to the 499,999 other people who are perhaps more technically-capable of developing the solution.

Those other souls are either disinterested, unmotivated, undedicated, starting from further behind or perhaps running a would-be competitor that your would-be investor/partner has no ability to profit from.

If you can't sell that as uniquely qualifying you to execute, the problem isn't the existence of those 499,999 other people. It's either:

a.) your not leveraging the advantages you have. b.) your not actually having put the energy and thought and dedication into the problem as far as you could without further investment. c.) your inability to convince would-be investors and partners of a and b. (Some people are just flat-out bad in the room.)

I'm not saying that a given project won't run into more-capable teams who are objectively better choices. But if there's anything remotely close to a few dozen of them actively out there pursuing the same solution space, you wouldn't even be able to get an investor interested in the first place.

[its_so_on]

Hi, You misunderstand. I'm not saying there is active competition. I'm saying, As a programmer, there are close to a million programmers who could execute this better in two weeks then I'm about to in the next month. But I'm still going to execute it over the next month. (Because no one else is doing it.) That means, despite my shitty execution, an idea is enough. No, this attitude won't get you investors. But it can get you something better: customers.

Above, I wasn't talking about actual competition, but your comment "If you concede that it's all in the execution and can't make an argument for why you're the right person to see it executed -- then you've already admitted that you have nothing to offer"

which you wrote in response to: "If the person with a great idea has something (very) substantial to offer a project based upon it then they are clearly a key component of the idea execution and should not fear discussing the idea with potential partners.

If the idea is all someone has then - frankly - no-one will want to listen to the idea in any case."

Basically, I "disagree with" the two quotes above (I don't actually disagree, since it is completely correct: no-one will want to listen to someone who doesn't say they're the best in the world at it).

I am saying that to ACTUALLY succeed (as opposed to convincing someone that you will), you don't have to be able to offer something VERY substantial above the idea. You do NOT have to have ANYTHING that makes you a VERY key player: it's enough to just have an idea and make it barely work, with a solution that there are a million people who COULD do it better in two weeks, but who aren't. I'm saying I don't have to be special or all that good or unique. I just have to have an idea, and it's okay to execute it at a level where if it were a competition with a million entrants (top million coders/teams worldwide) then I would come in 500,000.

Because it's not actually a competition with a million entrants. It's just you executing your idea. It just has to get some customers, it doesn't have to be unique or key or anything else. And often an idea is as simple as follows: There is no one doing x in my geographic area. I will learn PHP over the weekend and start offering x in my geographic area.

People do it, they make money, and they might even get investment after a while. All on a simple idea (no one's doing it here) and a shitty execution. That's the extent to which I disagree with your parent's and your quotes above. I do agree that investors want to hear chest-beating if the project doesn't exist yet, they want to hear about your Stanford and MIT credentials and how you architectured some part of paypal.

But you don't actually need to have that stuff to just do it.