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?
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.
Not sure if this is stealing, but this happened: Company hackathon, Team 2 devs(me+1) and a Sr. sales person (X), we the devs proposed something that’s cool business idea exploiting existing tech, X liked, presented well, we did some coding - All good, we won. Next year, once X is out of the company, X founds a company with exact idea, with spouse, some interns, coffeeshop meetings etc. Interestingly, never officially asked us, in fact had us over for coffee to discuss some technicalities, we didn’t bother/or know how to join when not asked. I think the business ran for 2-3 yrs may be ? X had contacts, so found the market I guess. Not sure what finally happened, X moved on to something else. Well, that’s that!
$3.50.
I desgned an item for scrating lottery scrathersHow should you pursue a product idea rather than an invention.
I had an idea … had a safety product made. Selling it 10x road on google shopping currently. I want to start selling it in America Yes ideas are worth their weight in gold if it’s a good one
$0
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.
I’ll never tell ideas without having people sign nda. Learned the hard way with someone taking my idea and running with it.
In today’s world, ideas are of little value without execution. Throughout history, we have seen numerous examples of kings who relied on their advisors’ sharp minds and visionary ideas to achieve success. However, as time progressed, these advisors were often removed from positions of power, leaving behind a void in leadership and decision-making. This trend has continued into the modern era, where innovative ideas are often buried beneath the weight of bureaucracy and the pursuit of short-term gains. As a result, we see a growing disconnect between those who generate ideas and those who possess the resources and authority to implement them. This disconnect has led to a situation where many people are simply copying the ideas of others in different way rather than seeking to develop their own original solutions. This lack of innovation is stifling progress and hindering our ability to address the complex challenges we face as a society.
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.
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.
Nothing unless you execute
What if you have a great idea but you couldn’t afford to implement it? I belive ideas have values if they are at least proven or tested even with a small prototype.
“Idea without execution is worth nothing” <- that doesn’t mean that ideas have no value.
In the same way, you could say that a computer is worthless, because a computer without electricity is worth nothing.
You need to connect the idea with execution for it to have value, but the idea has value, because if you connect it with execution, then it has some value.
In the same way, computer without electricity has value, and you can’t buy it on Amazon for free, because if you connect computer to electricity, then it becomes valuable.
So, yes, in my opinion, ideas have value.