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I Just Had the Greatest Idea

By Marc Carson · Tuesday January 28, 2014

[ Above: Volkswagen Beetle, photo by IFCAR ]

People approach me all the time with new ideas. They know I build websites and they want to bounce their web-based ideas off me to see what I think. Here are some examples I made up, just for fun:

(Note: I am not really serious about or interested in any of these myself…)

• Wouldn’t it be great if we could build a website where people could buy plush iPhones? That would be so cute! I’m sure people would buy millions and we’d all be rich!
• Wouldn’t it be amazing if there was a Facebook that was only aimed at grandmas? Something simpler to use, not so confusing?
• Wouldn’t it be incredible if there was a Youtube just for Republicans? And you could filter videos by the exact politician you wanted to hear from?

…right.

Now, these are not necessarily bad ideas. In fact there’s probably some way each one of them could work. But in my opinion, when we dream up things like these and let them float around in our minds generating gobs of speculative excitement, we give way too much credit to ideas, and not enough credit to true creativity.

How are the two different?

An idea could be absolutely brilliant in 4,000 ways, and terrible in the two ways that count the most!

Creativity means finding a way to work around those two “constraints” to come up with a unique solution.

What are constraints? For example:

• Maybe nobody wants a plush iPhone yet. There’s no demand. They might be really hard to sell.
• Maybe it’s really, really hard to make a Facebook-type site that isn’t confusing for grandmas in some way.
• Maybe grandmas only use Facebook because people of other generations are on Facebook—their grandkids, for example.
• Maybe it’ll be really, really hard to get Republicans to share videos on your brand new Youtube clone.
• Maybe not all Republicans have the same idea of what constitutes a “Republican” video.

If you can create something that works around those constraints, you might have a success on your hands. But until then, the original idea that doesn’t speak to any of those constraints isn’t doing you much good.

Here is Evernote CEO Phil Libin’s opinion on ideas:

I think the idea is not very important. It’s easier to have an idea. The idea is almost worthless by itself. It’s really all about execution. Evernote is not an original concept at all, it’s just about execution. Google wasn’t an original concept, Facebook wasn’t. It’s all about execution. It’s about creating a great experience and really focusing on doing it well. Actually, very few companies that are successful were the first ones to have that idea. It’s almost unheard of.

Good ideas are incredibly common. An idea by itself can’t even qualify for a patent! Patents are awarded for implementations, not abstract ideas, and for good reason. It won’t be enough to describe to a patent clerk that your kite-powered exercise equipment is “eco-friendly, fun, and wind-powered.” You’ll have to show how it actually operates. And that’s probably going to be hard. It will require creativity.

Next time you have a good idea, try to figure out some of the constraints, and see if you can creatively think your way around them.

That implementation process—making your idea stand out from the rest because of the details behind it—is where real successes come from.