| It's very rare that I see the "my idea alone is worth money" thing from people who have built actual businesses. I know that I would never pay for an idea alone. That's partly because it's not like we have a dearth of them. If we didn't have a new idea for the next year, that wouldn't be a problem; we have a giant backlog of excellent ideas. But we'll keep having new ideas. We're constantly looking at user experience and usage data, and ideas keep happening. More than that, though, I don't think an idea from an inexperienced person generally has a lot of merit. With a surface understanding, I think their ideas can have only surface appeal. Once you get into the nitty-gritty of implementation, you need a lot more depth than an amateur can provide. Imagine somebody going to a well-known chef and saying, "Hey, I don't know how to cook and I've never run a restaurant, but I go to them sometimes and I have this great idea. You should pay me 10% forever!" The would-be genius knows nothing about food costs or good staff or marketing or how to shmooze a critic. Nothing about relative real estate costs or buildouts or decorating or who to pay off to get a permit expedited. Nothing about balance sheets or seasonality of demand or tax regulations. Nothing about nothing, basically, except that they think it would be fun to go to a tiki bar/restaurant. They would be lucky if the chef doesn't answer with knife in hand. Having ideas is easy when you don't know anything. |
The case of having ideas when you don't know anything, I think we all agree, is silly for having a "secret sauce." The more interesting discussion is what to do when you have an idea and you know a helluva lot?
This is the case where I think you have to be careful. Yes, ideas without execution aren't worth much- but if your executable idea lands in the hands of somebody who can out-execute you, you are sunk unless you protect it. In fact, you are probably sunk even if you do protect it, but at least you may have a life raft.