Great Ideas are a Dime a Dozen and Almost Useless
I hate to break the news to you, but great ideas are a dime a dozen. The reality is that you’re not the only person who wakes up with great business ideas.
You are not the only person who goes for a run, jog, or walk and has an idea epiphany during their workouts.
You are not the only person who recognizes problems while in a restaurant, retail shop, or grocery store and then comes up with a great business ideas to solve that problem.
Sorry, you are not one in a million. You are probably 1 in 5.
Idea guys/gals are everywhere.
That is why in the words of the creator of Ruby on Rails and partner at 37signals David Heinemeier Hansson, “there’s no room for the idea guy” in a business, especially startups. PERIOD!!!
Hansson states:
Startups need people able and willing of doing the actual work. They need programmers, designers, and eventually folks to do marketing, support, and more. What they don’t need, though, is someone who’s just going to be The Idea Guy.
The truth is that most everyone has plenty of ideas that could work out to be great businesses…The value of The Perfect Idea is very small indeed…That doesn’t mean it’s useless to have big ideas and plenty of enthusiasm. If you’re that guy, you’ve got a great start.
Bottom line, is that if you want to start a business or join a startup, you must have a functional skill beyond just having great ideas.
This is a short piffy post from Hansson that I found to be a fun and timely read. Check it out on the 37Signals blog here.