Tom O’Keefe

As I wrote previously in “Creating Ideas Into Business” I talked about how TOKiBiz helps entrepreneurs execute their idea into an online application. I receive a lot of idea development requests via this site. Most of them aren’t significantly unique but how the entrepreneur plans to execute the idea is where the creativity comes into play. It’s the combination of this unique perspective coupled with the entrepreneur’s experience that makes the idea a good one! Ideas create new ideas.

Everyone has ideas but how to create those ideas into an internet application is the difficult part. Creating that idea into a solid brand and profitable business is the very difficult part.  

I respect people’s desire to be very protective of their thoughts but the truth is no one can execute it like you can. They way someone else views your idea is totally different than how you see it – plus the idea alone is not new or very complicated. As I wrote in “The Value of a Business Idea“:

For most ideas the initial value doesn’t necessarily come from the idea itself but the team behind that idea.  Many of us have similar ideas but the real value comes in how that idea is executed.  The more experience the team has the more likely they’ll have a successful execution – even if the idea isn’t earth shattering.  For many ideas aren’t earth shattering, however the most successful ones provide a simple solution to a common problem.

As Techcrunch reported there is a “Fourth YouTuber” who is looking to sue the company for stealing his idea. The reasons are given in the article but none of them are all that unique or even ones that didn’t exist before YouTube went live. The idea of posting videos on the web wasn’t a new one when YouTube went live in 2005. Revver, Brightcove, iFilm and others were around before 2005 but YouTube clicked with the masses. This doesn’t however mean YouTube is monetizing better than other sites – especially Hulu who is eating their lunch.

The “Fourth YouTuber” claims that he came up with the ideas for “video uploading, video commenting, agnostic video format, layout of the main video screen, awards and top listings “most watched”, star ratings, viewers, DMCA automation, video and audio fingerprinting.” Maybe he did but none of these ideas (or features) are all that unique. It’s stuff that developers casually talk about every day – if developers weren’t able to create ideas that originated from conversations then nothing would be built. We build upon what we read and hear about – again it’s the way individuals execute these ideas that make them unique. Take a dozen internet startups in twelve different industries and it’s likely that half of them integrate similar “Web 2.0″ features.

DJ Burdick, founder of One Season, says “business is 5% idea, 95% execution” in “Ideas are Cheap.” One excellent point that DJ makes is “a lot of entrepreneurs are afraid to share their ideas”: 

“We’re in stealth mode” you’ll hear people say. I think that this approach in general is more harmful than good. Let’s throw all morals out the window for a second and assume that people are bad and won’t have any aversion to stealing your idea. Talented and smart people have better things going on than waiting around to steal your idea. Untalented and unoriginal people who may try to steal your idea won’t be able to execute it.

The less experienced someone is at turning a concept into a business, the more they seem to feel like the idea is everything.

If you stay in “stealth mode” as an entrepreneur you’re really only hurting yourself.

NDAs are thrown around so often. It seems like every conversation is prefaced with a mutual NDA. VCs won’t sign them for good reason. And I think in general they are really pointless. Source:  Ideas are Cheap

We’re all influenced by the same technology, which in return stimulates ideas that are similar to others. Someone with a financial background is going to execute the idea differently than someone with a retail background. It’s the experience that one has within the industry that he/she is executing in that increases the likelihood of success for that idea. As I wrote in “Getting An Idea Off the Ground“: 

I use to think that at some point ideas would eventually run dry.  Now I know this is definitely not the case for there are millions of ways to make our lives better.  Ways that we never thought of before and ways that couldn’t exist without the idea launched previous to ours.  For ideas keep building on the ideas of those who came before us.