I have a friend who's been harbouring a reasonably good startup idea for the last 2 years. He's a solo-founder and is cautious in telling people his idea: perhaps he's told about five people all up. Personally, I believe he should take the opposite approach and pitch to anyone who will listen.<p>But it got me thinking: what is your philosophy for telling other people your startup idea(s)? Do you wait until a prototype is built? Or do you start pitching to everyone you meet from day one? Of course it differs from startup-to-startup, but it would be interesting to hear peoples experiences.<p>My personal belief is that people need to be force-fed anything that will require them to change a part of their life. And also: taking risks is an unavoidable part of being an entrepreneur. Thusly, I pitch every one of my ideas to anyone who will listen, prototype or no prototype.
The subtitle of my book might as well have been "How to compete with me" - I haven't seen any fresh competition, though.<p>I figure that my competition already hires people who are smarter and harder working than I am. The fact that I can compete at all means that either that nobody competent wants my market, or that the inefficiencies inherent to large organizations are larger than most people think. I suspect it's a little bit of both. Either way, I'm not going to waste my time keeping my ideas secret.<p>Expressing your ideas clearly has other benefits. The obvious is that you get some feedback before you put effort into development... but what is less obvious is that even if you fail, and /especially/ if someone steals your idea, clearly expressing an interesting idea (especially if you implement) looks good on the resume. Startups come and go, but you are going to have to sell yourself, likely, for the rest of your life.<p>On the other hand, as someone else in the thread said, "I'm a thousandaire!" which pretty accurately describes my current financial situation, so what right do I have to be giving advice?
Interesting question, one that'll likely be debated forever.<p>Regarding this - I see most people falling into one of two camps: (1) Trusting of people from the onset and slowly build walls due to bad circumstances, or (2) Walls pre-built and people need to break them down in order to "get in".<p>#1 will likely share their ideas freely
#2 will likely not
(there are always exeptions...)<p>What camp do you lean towards? My recommendation is that you try a little of the opposite... In my opinion, this is based around a fairly core trait...trust. You are who you are, and it's not easy to change a core trait like that. However, you can shift a bit and not make yourself uncomfortable.<p>It's probably been said a billion times, but ideas are nothing...action is everything. If you're not taking action yourself, and you need others to help...keeping that idea to yourself isn't going to get you any further.<p>That's really the bottom line.<p>Find the right people you can trust and talk to them. At some point, you do have to open up and share.<p>By the way, guilty as charged in the past. I've shifted, and am much happier for it.<p>Cheers,
AL
I tell everyone. Especially people who I think can help or be able to give meaningful insight.<p>My experience was that everyone has ideas but you can't tell a good idea from a bad one before executing on it. So there is no danger in anybody stealing the idea. Because you probably stole it yourself.<p>A startup idea, which is probably broad, is different from an implementation idea. Those I tend to tell only trusted people about and only to get their feedback.
Apple and 37Signals don't show products until they're ready. That works for them. Sahil of letscrate.com committed publicly to an iPhone app before even having an idea of what to make. That worked well for him.<p>The talking heads in this industry are popular because they commit to one side of the debate. The truth is, it depends.<p>Personally, my startup didn't start talking about our idea until we had prototypes made. We were <i>so</i> concerned that our competition would take our idea that we wanted to wait until we were a few steps ahead in the race. Guess what happened? They came out with a similar product anyway and now we risk looking like the Living Social to their Groupon. A good idea is a good idea and someone's already thought of it.<p>Don't go nuts and start yapping about every idea that crosses your mind because then you risk looking like a talker instead of a doer. Once you have some solid work in place, consider talking about it.<p>And to put my money where my mouth is, I'll tell you what my startup is up to. We make physical video game buttons that you can stick on your iPad, iPhone, etc. We plant to launch in a few weeks :)
Look, many get lucky with a viral site. Forget this. Find or make a great product or service, keep it simple, and be the best marketer you can be. If the biz is scalable, you may reach millions. Be patient and put in the time.<p>Here's my formula: choose a profit model. select an idea to fit it. test it. market.<p>Best to you!
When your laying in the bed
Is it more value in thinking about making coffee, a nice breakfast, and reading all the threads on HN
Are getting up and doing it....
Get to hacking and executing
Ideas are expensive, but unless you are very confident of their worth, and are able to milk value from them on your own, it's not worth keeping them locked up in a cellar.<p>Personally, if I think i have a brilliant idea, that's when I actually want to share it, so I can quickly learn how to milk value from it as I analyze they way others receive it.<p>Knowledge not expressed is void!<p>Maybe am a bit selfish at times, but who is not?