On Ideas

Quoted text is imp ... but the whole post is very good ....

Nikhil
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Three types of ideas - bad ones are often the best

Product ideas can be divided into three categories:

1. Obviously good ideas that are very difficult to implement. Efficient cold-fusion, flying cars, and a lot of other sci-fi ideas fall into this group.
   
2. Obviously "good" ideas that seem possible but haven't happened yet. Video phones and HDTV were in this category for a long time. I think this happens when people get excited about technology and overestimate the benefits (and possibly underestimate the cost). I just don't care that much about having a video phone.
   
3. "Bad" ideas. Many of these ideas are truly bad, but some of them will in hindsight turn out to have been very good ideas. I put them in the same category because they are difficult to distinguish without the benefit of hindsight. Some examples are the personal computer ("why would anyone need a computer?"), Google ("there are already too many search engines, and besides, search engines don't make money"), and Blogger ("can't you just use Geocities, and besides, are there really that many people with something worth saying?"). More recent (and still controversial) examples include Facebook and Twitter.
   

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Here's my point: The best product ideas are often found in the "bad ideas" category!

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Realizing that good ideas and bad ideas are often nearly indistinguishable, there are a few more lessons to be learned:

• Instead of endlessly debating whether an idea is good or not, we should find faster and cheaper ways of testing them. This is one of the reasons why open systems such as the Internet or market economies develop faster than closed systems, such as communism or big companies -- individuals and small groups are able to build new things without getting approval from anyone.
  
• Your product idea is generally worthless, because to most people it's indistinguishable other bad ideas. Very few people will want to buy (or steal, or take for free) your idea because they already have their own bad ideas which they like better. (There are other reasons as well, but this is one of them. The way to make your idea valuable is to demonstrate that it's not bad by building a real product -- this also demonstrates your ability to execute.)