I have been watching lots of Y combinator tutorials. There are a couple that discusses 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!

  • IntolerantModerate@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    The idea is obviously somewhat important for a number of reasons:

    1. If the idea is for a space that is too small, even with success you are going to be highly constrained
    2. If the idea is one that is going to require tremendous resources to execute on you are unlikely to have a serious chance (e.g., you have no chance of building a competitor to Boeing)
    3. If the idea is an obviously bad idea, then that is important.

    So, clearly the idea is important.

    When Sam say’s he doesn’t see pivoting to success, in many (most?) cases this is likely true. You start on an idea, raise funding, build more, figure out it isn’t working and then… you have blown through all your money and can’t raise more or you realize that you need to pivot into a crowded area or you realize you don’t have the skills to pivot, so you disband before their can be any successful pivot. And of course there is the definition of what is a pivot… How much do you rotate before it is a pivot?

    Going from say a CRM to a two-sided marketplace platform, for example, is a much smaller pivot than say a CRM to a TikTok competitor.