I have been watching lots of Y combinator tutorials. There are a couple that discuss how important the starting ideas are. But I got some conflicting information.
One of them is by Jared Friedman (https://youtu.be/Th8JoIan4dg?si=dICXL5OIGPSTtYni). He claims that starting idea is not as important. You will gradually pivot to an amazing idea if you choose the right idea space. It is similar to what I have been hearing that great execution and team are everything
The other one of them is given by Sam Altman (https://youtu.be/egJeFaIXZLo?si=BUWflkxXt6a3NqZh). He claims that idea is extremely important. He has not seen pivoting to success.
I am confused. What do yall think. I mean I do hear stories where pivoting leads to success. Sam is very talented entrepreneur. Maybe I misunderstood him?
Appreciate any opinions!
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Team and execution > idea. Look at Airbnb, they have a very simple idea, people copied it but couldn’t out execute them
Execution over idea all day long.
There are lots of great ideas out there. The ‘better mouse trap’ just needs to be better it doesn’t have to be ‘revolutionary’.
Professional money invests in the team. As long as the idea has a good chance of success/profitability it doesn’t really matter what it is so long as the team around it can execute.
In this day and age, there are few ideas that someone else won’t be able to copy. While it’s important to differentiate, you cannot sustain your business that way. Today, I’d argue that your brand matters a lot more and how well you can market it. Case in point, one of my clients is a pepper mill – he made his millions just grinding black pepper and selling it to restaurants and other food-related factories. That is a saturated market, but he had no issues taking a piece of the pie.
Sure, but for startups brand is to the disadvantages. I think brand is when you are moving across the chasm from early adopters to main population.
There is a period of time when you have to get early adopters and evangelist where idea and executions are the key
An interesting one. In my opinion, the key here is a point from Michael Siebel in which he stated that one shouldn’t fall in love with the solution, one should fall in love with the problem.
So if you’re solving a problem that many people really experience and care enough about to pay you for the solution, you’re on the right track. The solution (or an idea) can change and morph as you build your MVP and start talking to your first customers, but you’ll still be solving the same important problem.
So the idea, in a sense that it is a solution to a specific problem, might not matter as much as the problem itself. You could have different solutions and different approaches to tackle the same problem. Basically, that is why competition exists and some companies do better than others.
I think both are true - the idea is incredibly important and you can change to another idea if you realize that in the pursuit of your idea you find something better.
And the execution of the idea is the really tricky part where the rubber hits the road and you actually form all the aspects of what the service or product offering really is…
The part from Sam Altman’s lecture I am not too sure about is how important is the idea. He claims he has not seen pivoting results in success. I don’t know if he defines success as become a billionaire or not.
They’re a bunch of rich kids, funded by their parents, trying desperately to claim that anything but they’re parents made them successful. Every word these people speak is literal dog shit.
I do agree to some extent they benefits a lot from rich parents such as it gives them much more freedom and less concern about what if the business fail. But for people from a poor family, getting a job after college to make a living is NO1 priority.
But I do think if they have a success record, they prob do have some good lessons to offer