Ideas – how valuable are they?
Following Rajesh Jain’s weblog, I came across this post by Derek Sivers where he talks that the ideas are just a multiplier of execution.
His explanation is:
AWFUL IDEA = -1
WEAK IDEA = 1
SO-SO IDEA = 5
GOOD IDEA = 10
GREAT IDEA = 15
BRILLIANT IDEA = 20NO EXECUTION = $1
WEAK EXECUTION = $1000
SO-SO- EXECUTION = $10,000
GOOD EXECUTION = $100,000
GREAT EXECUTION = $1,000,000
BRILLIANT EXECUTION = $10,000,000To make a business, you need to multiply the two.
The most brilliant idea, with no execution, is worth $20.
The most brilliant idea takes great execution to be worth $20,000,000
In principle, I do agree with him but I really don’t agree with the numbers he mentions here. I will give a lot more weight to ideas (a multiplier of 20 for a brilliant idea looks awfully unfair to me).
But, yes, I do believe that – if you are banking just on your ideas – and think that somebody can execute it better than you, it’s not the right business for you to be in. This is because if your idea is indeed great – somebody else will build a competitive business around it soon, if not before you – and might beat you at the game. Your primary strength has to be the strong execution plan suited for your idea and continuous innovation and not just a brilliant idea. And, if you didn’t notice, let me draw your attention to the fact that I am differentiating between the execution plans for different ideas here – something that was not very clear to me till a few months back.
Don’t fret over the weightage given to the types of ideas : it’s the concept that’s important.Real food for thought.
But if I have a great idea and I think that somebody can execute it better than me,then it’s not necessarily the wrong business for me! I just need to :
a) find a guy who can execute it better
b) make him my partner / sell him the idea / make him my employee and hand him over the project.
Btw, I’m really amused by the possibility of brilliant execution of an awful idea; would like to see ‘that’ someday.
Anand, by ‘you’ – I mean ‘your team’. Of course, you don’t have to do everything yourself. And, more than often, the idea is not a single person idea – it is always ‘refined’ and ‘owned’ by the team.
And, btw, finding a partner / co-founder is not something that is very trivial. In my opinion, coming up with an idea is much easier than executing it. So, somebody who can execute it better – is always more ‘valuable’ than somebody who just came up with the idea.