Time To Defeat Our ShareFobia!
Saturday, May 28, 2011 at 11:09AM Last week I spoke at UCAB 2011, the first forum on entrepreneurship held at Universidad Catolica Andres Bello in Caracas. Over 500 business students packed the auditorium (see pics below) eager to get a few pointers on how to start their own companies.
When it came time for the Q&A session, the first person to raise their hand asked how were we able to get Open English off the ground without someone stealing our idea. The same question had come up a couple of weeks before at Universidad Simon Bolivar's annual job fair. A couple of young mechanical engineers in the audience confessed they didn't want to go out and raise money for fear of getting their idea stolen.
My answer on both occasions was that in my view, ideas aren't worth much without exceptional execution. I explained that had I not shared the concept for Open English with hundreds of people in the initial stages of the company, I wouldn't have been able to raise the money and recruit the talent necessary to build out our beta site and get some proof of concept. Perhaps more importantly, some of the people I shared our idea with gave me valuable feedback that helped shape our business model. (Open English was an ad-based model when we started!)
I searched around a bit and found a great blog post by Derek Sivers on the value of ideas vs. execution. Next time I get asked this question, I'm going to pull out a slide with Derek's formula!
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It's so funny when I hear people being so protective of ideas. (People who want me to sign an NDA to tell me the simplest idea.)
To me, ideas are worth nothing unless executed. They are just a multiplier. Execution is worth millions.
Explanation:
AWFUL IDEA = -1
WEAK IDEA = 1
SO-SO IDEA = 5
GOOD IDEA = 10
GREAT IDEA = 15
BRILLIANT IDEA = 20
NO EXECUTION = $1
WEAK EXECUTION = $1000
SO-SO EXECUTION = $10,000
GOOD EXECUTION = $100,000
GREAT EXECUTION = $1,000,000
BRILLIANT EXECUTION = $10,000,000
To make a business, you need to multiply the two.
The most brilliant idea, with no execution, is worth $20.
The most brilliant idea takes great execution to be worth $20,000,000.
That's why I don't want to hear people's ideas.
I'm not interested until I see their execution.
Reader Comments (1)
Universidad Simon Bolivar's one of the top universities! I finished one of his friends!
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