Ideas are Cheap
weblog.jamisbuck.org
weblog.jamisbuck.org
Ideas are cheap, they are easy. The hard part is being born into wealth.
The idea that you (and presumably others) are incapable of working on your own ideas because you're not wealthy is ludicrous, and nothing more than an excuse to validate inaction. If you want something, go get it.
Yeah if you wanna go to an Ivy League JUST DO IT! It doesn't matter that you have to work 20+ hours every week to support your family which can't pay the bills! Time you could have invested into school. But does that actually matter if you go to a crappy school your parents decided on? It doesn't matter that you guys don't have money to cover health insurance or regular dentist or doctor's appointments! Got a car? NO! Fuck it not enough money!
The world is WAY less meritocratic than we think.
It's generally assumed that positive thinking is how you get ahead (another American belief), but that doesn't seem to be the case: http://www.newyorker.com/currency-tag/the-powerlessness-of-p...
Try a 100 times and maybe you'll find the one that really clicks with you.
If so, I'd say that's more a matter of prioritization (assuming at least one project is underway). For example, I think we could all agree that working on 30 projects would be an ineffective way to spend time. Mark Cuban recommends "1, not 50" [1]. You have to pick your best candidate project and run with it, and what's best depends on what your criteria are.
I think the term "fear of failure" is applied too broadly. Often this "fear" is more a healthy respect for the challenge of bringing highly functional yet simple experiences to your end user. Those experiences coupled with a product that solves a legitimate problem, absent any legal or bureaucratic barriers, is a recipe for winning. Understanding the intricacies of the challenge can make it difficult to find a single-threaded manner to work on it. It's almost more of a logical bewilderment than it is fear.
If none of the ~30 projects are being worked on then maybe fear of failure or laziness might apply but it could still be a matter of prioritization.
And I didn't say you said fear of failure was bad, I said it was applied too broadly and possibly not even applicable in this case, though you seem to have thoroughly investigated his background, personality, time expenditures and other personal preferences, so I'm sure you know better.
... I was waiting eagerly for the "and execution is difficult."
>The hard part is being born into wealth.
Which gave me quite a hearty chuckle
How to finance the new business in a realistic way should be part of the "idea", just as much as how to make the widget and how to find customers for it.
#1. Ideas are seeds. They grow into the trees that then give us fruit, and it takes work to get to the fruit that is so valuable. Yet, without the seeds we would have nothing. So if you're into trees and want fruit, you still cannot avoid the idea problem. And you cannot avoid the fact that the value of your fruit will be proportional to the value of the original idea. So if you're about to put a day, a week, or a year into an idea, it better be a damn good idea.
#2. Ideas require more ideas. People seek that one amazing idea and think they're done. Hell no. We may start with one idea, but day after day new challenges will arise as we work on that idea. And the only way to solve those challenges is with great ideas. We can look at an iPhone and say, "touch, ya of course", but the designers and engineers know that there were countless ideas that made the original concept work. If something about an idea is not working, chances are another idea can fix it.
#3. Ideas only come from the mind. So in the end, the fruit that lends itself to the idea lends itself to the person or persons that came up with them -- the source of instructions for all the right work. This makes the constant thinker an invaluable part of the entire process. And thank goodness there is that constant thinker in all of us, as well as that constant worker that gets those instructions done.
“We shouldn't be looking for heroes, we should be looking for good ideas.”
― Noam Chomsky
IMHO those with the greatest ideas have already proven to be our heros. Everyone works, ideas are what generate work, and working on ideas is work also. There is no choice between the seed (ideas), the nurturing (execution), and the soil (environment). They are all mission critical, and depend on one another. And there really is no swapping of seeds, no rewinding the clock, and no replacing the soil. Granted we ever get that far, if the product or service does suck, the company must rot. We are free to thank the people, the opportunity, the journey, and all we learnt from it, but in the end the ideas are only there to be damned. Ideas: Cheap but crucial. Always bring as many as you can.
Its not much different than being presented with a thousand logos and then having to decide which one you are going to choose.
In other words producing a thousand ideas isn't going to help you unless you try them all out. If you could; most likely what you would find, is that your most stupid ideas are going to be the biggest winners.