I’ve seen a lot of people who don’t want to share and talk about their ideas for fear of them being stolen. I’ve always believed that an idea without implementation is worth nothing. But maybe I’m wrong.
Tell me, have you ever had an idea stolen from you?
Did you really want to do it? Or do you realize now that you never would have made this app/business anyway?
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My idea was stolen twice by 2 separate companies in different years. Only because my product was already successful. I dont know if that counts as an idea being stolen since it was more than an idea at that point. They copied all of my tiers and bonus numbers exactly.
At the start of my career, I had a mentor who said don’t discuss things until after you’ve done them, it distracts from the process. She was (and still is) one of the most successful people I have ever met.
Aside from this, some ideas are actually unique and do need to be patented, copyrighted, protected etc.
So I find it’s best to keep your business ideas to yourself until you launch. As they say “only tell the people you’d ask to shift a body”, lol.
Personally, I don’t agree with this and know many successful entrepreneurs who don’t either. People like to play this stoic, “speak softly, carry a big stick,” persona where they disappear and keep their cards close to their chest until they’re successful.
However, your probability of success increases greatly the more people who know what you’re doing. The more networking, feedback, etc. you can gather the better. Generally, people like to help other people.
By being vocal with your issues/challenges, someone else may know someone who has solved it before or can help you.
A friend of a friend could be your next partner, mentor, investor, customer, etc.
Just my two cents!
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If ideas worth anything, there would be an idea marketplace.
The world is an idea marketplace. Those who recognise this wisely exchange their ideas.
Great perspective with regards to the marketplace notion…now with that said, you could argue that patents are the marketplace.
People with the idea and the ability to patent it create an idea with a potential value. That value is realized via commercialization, licensing, or litigation.
Thanks for making me think today.
While I agree that simply ideas are basically worth nothing, tbf an idea marketplace couldn’t be implemented even if they would have value
Why not?
It would be possible using the patent system.
Step 1: people with ideas file provisional patent with sufficient detail to be considered an enabling disclosure.
Step 2: ideas are published on a marketplace website.
Step 3: idea buyers peruse the website
Step 4: idea buyer can purchase an idea. They get the rights to the provisional patent.
Step 5: idea buyer files a complete patent application (or PCT application) within 12 months of the provisional patent, listing the idea person as the inventor.
Step 6: everyone is happy
Step 1 is actually not necessary in countries that have a ‘grace provision’. In ‘grace provision’ countries, this means an idea that is published within 12 months of the complete filing date cannot be used as prior art to invalidate the patent (if the person who published the idea is the same as the person filing the complete patent).
The enabling disclosure is key to the idea. You need to be very clear and specific about exactly how the invention works.
But this makes little to no sense, if for example, Jeff Bezos came up with the idea of “online book store” in 90s, then chances are that someone else had that idea, so it creates another useless legal battle where the only weapon the idea creator has is that ha patented it earlier, this could be detrimental to economy as monopolies would pop up way more often.
Mostly correct and I agree that almost all ideas (even good ones) are worth $0. It’s all about execution. However, if you can come up with them consistently there are think tanks.
Hmm, that’s a good answer.
A plausible excuse, the truth is less appealing.
Why has this type of business not been started? Two reasons, neither of them any good.
Ideas can be valuable, as so few have put any effort into an idea. As for the execution-is-everything crowd … opinions vary.
What happend to Phonebloks? –5 years later my go-to for inspiring (but mostly discouraging) idea guys. This is the kind of feedback you can pay attention to. Here, we get questions about whether five-to-twelve people are enough confirmation bias to go ahead.
Blue Ocean Tragedy is the problem rather than any kind of solution.
They think their “idea” is novel
It’s usually either a dead on tested and competitive entire market or somekind of worthless unmonetizable products.
Either “paper towel but soft and without the center part” or “chewing gum for the next week after being in space for astraunauts”.
Either someone that can’t for the love of god even use google or someone that somehow believe a niche missing competition might just never be because it doesn’t exist to begin with.
Sharing the idea is against the rules for wantrepreneurs because they now have to act, they know that real entrepreneurs will mock them for how little they even know about their own hypothetical market and product.
They are usually less knowledgeable about their “own market” than a rando entrepreneur in a completely unrelated field.
Most people that think their unique ideas have any worth are usually at the “peak of mount stupid” of the Dunning-Kruger curve.
It’s usually either a dead on tested and competitive entire market or somekind of worthless unmonetizable products.
If I had a nickel for every NDA that resulted in a conversation about “an app that finds open parking spaces” or “an Ai sales email chat bot” I’d have like a shitload of nickels or whatever
I desgned an item for scrating lottery scrathersHow should you pursue a product idea rather than an invention.
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$3.50.
As ever, it’s not ideas that matter in entrepreneurship, it’s execution.
Yes I’ve had ideas stolen from me.
Thieves come in two categories, but they have one thing in common, they can’t help it and they will steal again if you let them.
- The friendly ones: You know them and you trust them. A client asked to buy me a cup of coffee. I spent an hour helping him with ideas for improving his business. At the end of our meeting he said: “So what are you up to?” I said I was working on an idea, and that his company could help me test it, because some of his customers was in my target group. He told me it was a hopeless idea and that he could see no use for it - it made me question my idea and I stopped working on it. Three months later he launched the product. He never heard the full story and will never fully understand the potential of the idea, but I lost the traction I could have gotten.
- The stupid ones: They try to mimic whatever successful people do. Youtube is full of Mr. Beast lookalikes. X is full of guru’s with just the right program to be a successful tweeter. Taking an idea and making it into a success without the visionary inventor is close to impossible, unless you copy a full business on a new market. Done successfully by the Samwer brothers: https://eightify.app/summary/online-business-and-entrepreneurship/3-billionaire-brothers-copying-websites-curiosity-dose-11
To fight a category 1. thief shut the f*ck up unless you talk with a person you can _really_ trust. If you want to protect yourself, try reading “One Simple Idea” https://inventright.com/books/one-simple-idea/ To fight a category 2. thief make sure that your underlying business model is not in direct view. Which will give the thief a chance to copy your idea, but not the business.
It’s like fire, as fire needs fuel, oxygen and a spark. An idea is the spark but without the other components it’s not very helpful.
There’s some companies that are rubbing sticks together while others are a flamethrower.
Like basically everything else its worth as much as there’s demand for it.
Nothing unless you execute
I agree that most ideas are worth $0 or very close to zero. But to add a slightly different view, I think there are some ideas that do have inherent value. If the idea is dependent on being a really niche subject matter expert then the execution can be a little less important. You still need to execute on the idea and vision, but these really niche SMEs can sometimes find gaps in the market that are extremely receptive to any solution. Whereas most markets in this day and age require a fairly polished solution.
I’ll never tell ideas without having people sign nda. Learned the hard way with someone taking my idea and running with it.
Keep your ideas to yourself.
I have a few ideas that I think are worth some money.
There have been at least three that I did not act upon, but someone else did.
In 2007-2008, I was looking to open a business, preferably on the internet.
My first idea was for a dating site where women had to make the first move to contact the man.
The second idea was to create a site where people could post long form articles instead of the 250-word articles that were so popular back then.
The third idea was to have a site where models could post their images and videos, and people would pay to see the work of the individual models.
As you know,
The first is Bumble
The second is Medium
The third is OnlyFans/Patreon.
So yeah, keep your ideas to yourself.