My view is that the article is 99 44/100%, fresh, soft, still steaming, and actually destructive, BS.
The whole post is based on what is apparently deliberately both an obscure and even ambiguous use of the word 'idea'. So, with such deliberate obscurity and ambiguity, all he has is a way to insult entrepreneurs so that all he has is that steaming pile.
Details:
So, at the beginning of his post, to him an 'idea' is something worth protecting as intellectual property.
There actually are ideas worth protecting: Sometimes they are protected by Top Secret in the US DoD, via the USPTO, and by trade secret law. In research, the first person with a really good idea can win a valuable prize, e.g., a Nobel. Flatly, protecting ideas is not all just foolishness.
Then during his post he bends his idea to mean just some general description from 100,000 feet up that would need no protection and likely could not get any from, say, the USPTO.
So, by the end of his post, to him an 'idea' is something as vague as, say,
Facebook but for dog lovers, "with nearly all romantic angle", and, to keep quality up, need an invitation to get in.
Yes, for such an 'idea', to quote J. Doerr at KP, "execution is everything" and for a good reason: The idea is trivial; anyone could think up such ideas at a rate of one a minute for most of an hour.
Now we come to the real weakness in the author: He's missing the standard, old 'paradigm' of an entrepreneur with a good 'idea':
Start with a problem that millions, maybe hundreds of millions, of people have and would very much like to have solved or at least solved much better than at present.
Since some millions of people have the problem, the 'idea' of solving the problem is obvious. In that case, just why is the problem not solved?
Simple: No one knows how to solve it.
The classic example is one pill taken once to cure any cancer. And, that's not the 'idea'. Instead the 'idea' would be how to make the pill, and that would need protection. In terms of entrepreneurship, the pill is the 'secret sauce', and the word 'secret' is well chosen.
So, the author is deliberately confusing a trivial idea, one pill to cure cancer, with a difficult idea, how to make such a pill. Silly author with a silly post.
Q. But your example is from biomedical. The article and HN are concerned with software.
A. Oh, poor one: There are plenty of big problems that can be solved by software and a good idea where the idea is quite difficult to construct but much better than anything else available or obvious.
So, the big problem of the author is that he does not understand the possibility of such ideas.
So, he has
1.) Execution is more important than the idea
For a trivial idea, yes. However, if the idea was actually how to make a one pill cure for any cancer, then the idea was all that was important and, believe me, "execution" will be only very routine.
2.) Someone else has the exact same idea.
Nonsense. Absolutely 100% total nonsense. I've published papers in the peer-reviewed research literature where the standard requirement is "new, correct, and significant". Note the "new". And I got a Ph.D. from a good research university, and there the main requirement was "an original contribution to knowledge worthy of publication". Note the "original".
3.) Totally unique ideas generally don't make it
Nonsense. What he means is, say, a new product, of a very different kind in all respects, e.g., one that requires customers to do something quite new, for a new need for new customers in a new market generally doesn't make it. Right.
But a one pill cure for cancer, which would be "totally unique", would have to fight customers off with rings of guards, literally.
4.) The most likely cause of failure is your incompetence, not losing to the competition
Yup, insult the entrepreneur again.
5.) You desperately need real feedback
Yup, insult the entrepreneur again.
6.) First mover advantage is just silliness
Nonsense: A first mover advantage is just that, an "advantage" and not "silliness".
Net, the author wants to insult entrepreneurs and doesn't understand what a really good 'idea' actually is.
Totally unique ideas don't make it. You can't build a business on being ten years ahead of the market - you'll have a 0.0001% response rate. To be a successful entrepreneur, you have to be fifteen minutes ahead of the market - and that means that, yes, there are other people with ideas very, very close to yours who are working on it at the same time.
(Edit as afterthought: sometimes you can be way ahead of people and still make it big, and these quantum leaps make history. It's just that it's poor strategy to assume you're going to win that lottery - and the people who aren't actually ready to start a startup tend to underestimate the length of the odds. Hell, we all do, it's what makes H. sapiens so much fun to watch.)
The larger point here is that in starting a startup, you're not really working on an idea so much you're working on assembling a team of people to implement the idea, learning how to build a business, how to manage customers, marketing and sales, technical support - all that stuff. The idea is just the irritant that gets the pearl going.
Your "ten years ahead of the market" is not very well defined or meaningful. If a business idea is poor, then there have to be better objections than that. If that's the only objection, then it is not very serious.
There can be many reasons a business can fail; being "ten years ahead of the market" is not a meaningful description of any of them.
Again, for an extreme scenario, if you see how to make a pill so that that one pill taken once will safely cure any cancer, then you will have a very successful business. And, with irony, at this point one might guess that the pill was "50 years ahead" of the state of the art, the rest of medical science, or something or other, maybe your "market", and all that will matter not at all. Instead you will literally have to hire guards to keep the desperate customers from knocking down your door.
"Ahead of the market" is just next to irrelevant.
The challenge in the one pill is just understanding how to make it. That challenge is similar for many products that would obviously be very valuable to have. The reason we don't have the products is that no one has the understanding to know how to make the product. As soon as someone does understand how to make the product, then they will have a successful business and 'behind, equal, or ahead of the market' will be irrelevant.
For your first paragraph, I addressed essentially exactly your content in my:
"3.) Totally unique ideas generally don't make it
Nonsense. What he means is, say, a new product, of a very different kind in all respects, e.g., one that requires customers to do something quite new, for a new need for new customers in a new market generally doesn't make it. Right.
But a one pill cure for cancer, which would be 'totally unique', would have to fight customers off with rings of guards, literally."
That a product is "totally unique" is not by itself a handicap. Business history is awash in very successful products that were "totally unique". Home lighting? People used candles made from 'tallow', that is, fat. Next came burning whale oil, then gas lights burning a crude natural gas made from coal, then kerosene made from newly discovered crude oil, then incandescent electric lights, then fluorescent electric lights, and now light emitting diodes. From the first candle to the present, that each advance was "totally unique" was not a handicap. Instead, each advance was better and, thus, warmly welcomed.
Electric power for a house? Suppose in 1900 you had a really nice house but without electric power. Now what? It will be a PAIN to run the wires. If the wires are all behind the walls, then there is a lot of carpentry to do. If the wires are, say, in tubes or some such but visible, then you have just made a mess out of possibly some gorgeous construction. Home electric power was "totally unique", but people eagerly did it.
In 1950, people who traveled across the Atlantic used steamships. By 1970, there were nearly no such steamships. Why? Boeing made the 707 that was fast, smooth, and quiet and got people across in a few hours instead of a few days. The 707 was "totally unique" and accepted right away. So was the Concorde, for those who could pay for it.
The first telegraphs? Definitely "totally unique", and was a rapidly growing business right away.
TV? Definitely "totally unique", and soon nearly everyone had to have one, and moderately wealthy people had several. Early on the programming was suckage; the electronics was unreliable; and the signal quality was awful; still people bought them.
A large fraction of all the materials now used in small commercial building construction was not even on the market 30 years ago. But each time a good, new "totally unique" product came out, it made good progress. So, want some long floor joists? Want to look for a 20 foot long 2 x 12? F'get about. Instead you will likely have to use a fake wooden I-beam where the interior is plywood and the top and bottom are glued from thin strips of wood. For exterior sheathing? Used to use diagonal 1 x 6 or some such. Then used plywood. Now use 'oriented strand particle board' glued up from wood scraps.
Insulation? Now commonly polyurethane foam installed with a special spray gun when the outer sheathing is on but the inner walls are not. "Totally unique" product.
A microwave oven? "Totally unique" and caught on right away.
FedEx overnight small package delivery? When it came out, it was "totally unique" but caught on quickly.
The US does a census each 10 years. By about 1880 or so, it was taking longer than 10 years to process the census data. So the Census Bureau worked with Herman Hollerith who, roughly, borrowed from Jacquard's special loom ("totally unique") and made his "totally unique" punched card equipment; it was used in the next census and was much faster. That the solution was "totally unique" didn't bother the 19th century census people at all.
During WWII, the main means of numerical calculations was just mechanical calculators. Looking for something better, von Neumann and others built some "totally unique" electronic digital computers. Caught on right away.
Daisy wheel printers? "Totally unique" and caught on right away. I still have one connected to a serial port at 1200 bps with XON/XOFF and use it for typing addresses on envelopes.
The dot matrix printer, the laser printer, the ink jet printer? "Totally unique" and caught on right away.
In the late 1940s, Bell Labs finally was successful on what they had wanted before WWII -- a solid state electronic amplifier to replace hot, unreliable vacuum tubes. It was called the 'transistor' and was "totally unique" and was very welcome right away.
Just what is it you find so difficult to accept about a good, new solution for a serious problem? Somehow you believe that being new is a serious obstacle? You believe that can take some average of what is in the market and then conclude that anything much different has a handicap?
Again, the reasons for failure are much more solid than some comparison with some chronology of some average of 'the market', which really is essentially irrelevant.
One of the major opportunities for entrepreneurs is just to find such good solutions. For business success, it is in some ways easier if the target customers already know that they want the problem solved.
Still sometimes entrepreneurs also find very successful products to solve problems people didn't even realize they had or wanted solved: Apparently examples include iPhone, Twitter, and Facebook.
Umm actually the guys who coined the term "first mover advantage" actually wrote a paper explaining why they were wrong. They published it in the harvard business review so u should be able to find it via google.
"First mover advantage" is still an 'advantage'. E.g., Hughes Tool. Xerox and their photocopier that they made for about $1500 and sold for about $29,000. FedEx had a nice first mover advantage: They were flying under CAB regulation Part 91b for unscheduled air taxi, intended for mom and pop air charter operations. So, their planes had to have max gross takeoff weight of 25,000 pounds. With an exception they got 28,660 and could fly the Dassault Fan Jet Falcon DA-20 and quickly bought about all there were. Bigger planes? Illegal for them to operate trucks. That first mover advantage was key for their success. Then Carter appointed Kahn to the CAB, and he killed it. Then FedEx and everyone else, e.g., UPS, could both fly large airplanes and operate trucks. The guy who comes second or later might win, but being first can still be one heck of an advantage.
No, not always or really: In research, the 'idea', if it is correct, really is the core of the work. All it takes to win the Abel prize and more is a good idea for answering the question P versus NP. The only difficulty is the idea. Then have to type in the theorems and proofs, and that is likely less than 100 pages, at maybe five hours a page, and not so difficult.
2.) Someone else has the exact same idea.
Nonsense. Absolutely 100% total nonsense. I've published papers in the peer-reviewed research literature where the standard requirement is "new, correct, and significant". Note the "new". And I got a Ph.D. from a good research university, and there the main requirement was "an original contribution to knowledge worthy of publication". Note the "original".
We're talking about business ideas, not new research. Your new discoveries didn't grow up to be successful businesses. They're too young for that.
They didn't grow to be successful businesses, but that they are too young is not the reason. One of the ideas and papers was, and remains, a candidate for a successful, new business, but it would take a little more cash than I have to get it going: There were interested customers. I gave a nice presentation at one. But the target customers would be only the high end server farms and networks, and developing and selling to them are expensive, even if the software from the core research is done, and it mostly is.
My current project is based on my original rsearch; we will see in coming months if I can build into a successful business. About three dozen VCs are eager to see a prototype. For good or bad, I didn't write a prototype and, instead, wrote production quality code. At this point, I need to develop only a few more simple Web pages and the VCs will be able to see it. And the original research is just crucial for the project and has high promise of a high technological barrier to entry.
My view is that the article is 99 44/100%, fresh, soft, still steaming, and actually destructive, BS.
The whole post is based on what is apparently deliberately both an obscure and even ambiguous use of the word 'idea'. So, with such deliberate obscurity and ambiguity, all he has is a way to insult entrepreneurs so that all he has is that steaming pile.
Details:
So, at the beginning of his post, to him an 'idea' is something worth protecting as intellectual property.
There actually are ideas worth protecting: Sometimes they are protected by Top Secret in the US DoD, via the USPTO, and by trade secret law. In research, the first person with a really good idea can win a valuable prize, e.g., a Nobel. Flatly, protecting ideas is not all just foolishness.
Then during his post he bends his idea to mean just some general description from 100,000 feet up that would need no protection and likely could not get any from, say, the USPTO.
So, by the end of his post, to him an 'idea' is something as vague as, say,
Facebook but for dog lovers, "with nearly all romantic angle", and, to keep quality up, need an invitation to get in.
Yes, for such an 'idea', to quote J. Doerr at KP, "execution is everything" and for a good reason: The idea is trivial; anyone could think up such ideas at a rate of one a minute for most of an hour.
Now we come to the real weakness in the author: He's missing the standard, old 'paradigm' of an entrepreneur with a good 'idea':
Start with a problem that millions, maybe hundreds of millions, of people have and would very much like to have solved or at least solved much better than at present.
Since some millions of people have the problem, the 'idea' of solving the problem is obvious. In that case, just why is the problem not solved?
Simple: No one knows how to solve it.
The classic example is one pill taken once to cure any cancer. And, that's not the 'idea'. Instead the 'idea' would be how to make the pill, and that would need protection. In terms of entrepreneurship, the pill is the 'secret sauce', and the word 'secret' is well chosen.
So, the author is deliberately confusing a trivial idea, one pill to cure cancer, with a difficult idea, how to make such a pill. Silly author with a silly post.
Q. But your example is from biomedical. The article and HN are concerned with software.
A. Oh, poor one: There are plenty of big problems that can be solved by software and a good idea where the idea is quite difficult to construct but much better than anything else available or obvious.
So, the big problem of the author is that he does not understand the possibility of such ideas.
So, he has
1.) Execution is more important than the idea
For a trivial idea, yes. However, if the idea was actually how to make a one pill cure for any cancer, then the idea was all that was important and, believe me, "execution" will be only very routine.
2.) Someone else has the exact same idea.
Nonsense. Absolutely 100% total nonsense. I've published papers in the peer-reviewed research literature where the standard requirement is "new, correct, and significant". Note the "new". And I got a Ph.D. from a good research university, and there the main requirement was "an original contribution to knowledge worthy of publication". Note the "original".
3.) Totally unique ideas generally don't make it
Nonsense. What he means is, say, a new product, of a very different kind in all respects, e.g., one that requires customers to do something quite new, for a new need for new customers in a new market generally doesn't make it. Right.
But a one pill cure for cancer, which would be "totally unique", would have to fight customers off with rings of guards, literally.
4.) The most likely cause of failure is your incompetence, not losing to the competition
Yup, insult the entrepreneur again.
5.) You desperately need real feedback
Yup, insult the entrepreneur again.
6.) First mover advantage is just silliness
Nonsense: A first mover advantage is just that, an "advantage" and not "silliness".
Net, the author wants to insult entrepreneurs and doesn't understand what a really good 'idea' actually is.