Less Everything Blog - Business Comments

Comment on 'NDAs are unnecessary because ideas are worthless' by Ryan Daigle

2008-07-06T14:03:26Z

Couldn’t agree more, Steve.

Comment on 'How to Choose a Consulting Company to Build Your App' by Ben

2008-07-02T19:26:54Z

That was an excellent post!

I just wish I could get my boss to read this. It would make my life so much easier.

Comment on 'NDAs are unnecessary because ideas are worthless' by Jeff

2008-07-02T17:28:19Z

Brennen, I may have read that article too…it sounds familiar. There are many companies that succeed even though their idea is derivative, or just a shameless knock off (Giant Glass, JN Philips, any other windshield installer) but there the success is from differentiation AND execution.

But when you see a company/product/service and smack yourself with the proverbial “Why didn’t I think of that” ... that’s a good idea; it sure isn’t execution.

Comment on 'NDAs are unnecessary because ideas are worthless' by Bryan Ray

2008-07-02T14:16:25Z

Good post and I just wanted to toss a LOL @lowhandicap. Good stuff.

Comment on 'How to Choose a Consulting Company to Build Your App' by Bryan Ray

2008-07-02T14:06:55Z

Excellent points, Steven.

I firmly believe that good developer talent is hard to come by these days and that small consulting firms can typically provide much more value than larger firms.

Comment on 'NDAs are unnecessary because ideas are worthless' by Zach Inglis

2008-07-01T13:46:58Z

Hmm. I do agree with your notion that your suggested ideas are not unique, but generally the implementation and basic theories of operation build that idea into something greater. The idea-space is muddied and overpopulated, so it is very hard to think of something truly new, and of course, we all know it does not need to be (Twitter. I was working on an implementation. Facebook had their own, etc.) and that’s what make it.

People like products that are aimed at them, and that are there to help and convenience them. It does not need to be new, that means nothing. The Social network wars are a perfect example. You just need to showcase your brand a certain way for people to like you better.

I would say 70% of all NDAs i’ve signed have been unique in some way, the rest have had some discerning or clever feature. It is important to protect one’s brand and the reason NDAs do exist are probably through a long time worth of business exploits. NDAs are never immediately needed, but if they save one client in 1000, then I can see them as a good thing.

And for what its worth, there is not much in the market of screencasting video tutorial sites where youe arn money for each video. In fact, we are the only ones (http://clipgarden.com), everyone else gives you a little cash and makes all the profit.

PS- Color blind designers rule!

Comment on 'NDAs are unnecessary because ideas are worthless' by Maxime

2008-07-01T13:21:15Z

I agree with you on the NDAs. Most of the projects depends on how the idea is implemented.

I personally like the iPhone Pizza thing :)

Comment on 'NDAs are unnecessary because ideas are worthless' by Brennan

2008-07-01T04:38:00Z

Jeff, I was reading something a few months ago about the (un)necessity of getting a manager guy for a startup and that at one point said that the success of companies has no significant correlation to any quality of the idea. The actual decision to execute and follow through on any idea, regardless of how stupid, is what matters.

Comment on 'NDAs are unnecessary because ideas are worthless' by Auston

2008-07-01T03:19:17Z

But you told me my idea was good!

lol

No but really, I’m stealing your iPhone pizza idea. Drunk people all over the world will thank you, or should I say.. ME!!

Comment on 'NDAs are unnecessary because ideas are worthless' by lowhandicap

2008-06-30T16:49:24Z

My idea is to create a social network for finding golf buddies with the expectation of sex. Now that’s a winner.

Comment on 'NDAs are unnecessary because ideas are worthless' by Steven Talcott Smith

2008-06-30T16:01:57Z

People like us who have tons of ideas, only see the work involved in actually implementing them. We value ideas much less than execution.

I could come up with new business ideas all day. I cook one up by accident whether I want to or not at least every week.

I don’t mind telling people what I’m doing because I know far more than they do about what’s actually involved and I have the ability to actually make it real. The only people who you don’t want to share your idea with are the exact people who will never sign an NDA anyway—people who are potentially backing or connected to your competition.

But there are a lot of people out there whose creative muscles are not big and beefy and they are always looking for a “great idea”. They are good individual contributors but not necessarily visionary founder types. If they want to start something, they must at least partner with a visionary and be damn good at execution.

Comment on 'NDAs are unnecessary because ideas are worthless' by Jeff

2008-06-30T14:42:49Z

Interesting take… while I agree that quite a few business ideas are just plain silly or ignorant, it doesn’t matter how well you can execute if you have nothing to execute at all. Without an idea, execution is meaningless.

Seems like ideas and execution have symbiotic relationship here.

Comment on 'Pitfalls of Guaranteed Success' by Amy Hoy

2008-06-30T14:34:36Z

Thanks for this. In the midst of trying not to do #3 and #5, I’ve fallen prey to #7. The others aren’t an issue, but I got a little too excited fighting for my territory I think.

I guess even tho I’ve finally internalized the “not now – maybe next release!” mentality, I have to remember that’s not really a conversation ender.

Comment on 'NDAs are unnecessary because ideas are worthless' by Yardboy

2008-06-30T14:31:50Z

Only the “Bacon” idea is worth the electrons it’s printed on.

:) jk – great post.

Comment on 'Those who can't...teach' by Steven Southard

2008-06-29T19:06:19Z

It may be that you just don’t have time to do both really well or maybe you’re a great programmer but just don’t have the creative chops to put it all together in a package that people would enjoy using. Or likely you’ve got the front-end skills but with so many great open-source projects out there doesn’t the question come up of why should I make my own. You seem to have both and props to you for having it.