When participating in startup circles and competitions, I often found people asking organizers whether their project ideas would be protected from disclosure. Some even suspected that organizers held these events merely to plagiarize their “brilliant” ideas. Others, when discussing projects with me, specifically asked for a guarantee that their ideas wouldn’t be leaked. Every time I heard these situations, I felt a mix of emotions. Indeed, this is a common mistake for many novice entrepreneurs, especially a result stemming from an Asian educational background.
Today, I want to say that we often mistakenly believe that a “brilliant” startup idea is the cornerstone of success. We spend a lot of time racking our brains trying to find that unique, never-before-seen or heard-of idea, and even after finding it, we carefully guard it, fearing it might be “stolen.” However, the harsh reality is: your startup idea truly isn’t that important; in fact, nobody cares.
❓ Why Isn’t the Idea Important?
- Execution is Key: What truly determines success is how you implement that idea, and the resilience, learning ability, and adaptability you demonstrate during the execution process. It’s like everyone knows inventing a “random door” or a “time machine” would surely make you rich, but few can actually build one. An idea itself is just an idea; whether it can be brought to fruition is what matters.For example, Apple launched the Newton PDA in the early 90s. Although conceptually advanced, it failed due to being clunky and having poor recognition. Palm Pilot, launching a similar product years later, achieved great success with its simple design and stable performance. Both had similar concepts, but the difference in execution determined their ultimate fate.
- There Are No New Ideas in Today’s Market: With more and more people venturing into entrepreneurship, the act of starting a business has become extremely common. We don’t lack ideas; essentially, most ideas you can think of are already being pursued by someone, or have already been attempted and failed.There isn’t a good idea out there that hasn’t been tried yet. For instance, social media platforms, e-commerce websites, ride-sharing services, etc., have gone through countless iterations and fierce competition. It’s challenging to come up with a “never-before-thought-of” concept. What’s more common is the optimization of existing models, targeting niche markets, or integrating technologies.
- Ideas Constantly Evolves: Market feedback, user needs, and technological iterations will force you to continuously adjust and optimize your idea. Few startup companies develop exactly according to their initial concept. Take YouTube as an example: its initial concept was an online dating site where users could upload videos to introduce themselves. However, users started uploading various types of videos, and the team quickly seized this trend, transforming it into a video-sharing platform, leading to the YouTube we know today.
- Market Validation is Paramount: Whether your idea is “good” or not is determined by the market and by users, not by you. Before market validation, your idea is merely a hypothesis. Instead of obsessing over the perfection of an idea, you should bring it to market as quickly as possible to get real user feedback.
- Competition is Inevitable: Even if you believe your idea is unique, someone will always come up with something similar or solve the same problem in a different way. Competition is a constant in entrepreneurship, and your idea is not your only moat.
⚠️ If your idea is completely non-existent in the market, no one has ever done it, and you are the first original creator, you will also face the following standard outcomes:
- The idea has absolutely no demand, to the extent that no one is doing it. You’re working in the wrong direction in vain.
- The idea gains significant support and usage upon launch, confirming you are indeed the original creator. At this point, you might get acquired (a good outcome), otherwise, you’ll likely be copied by a larger established company. They will replicate your model, re-create it, and pour in their resources and traffic, quickly out-competing and consuming you.
- Your idea is too far ahead of its time; the market isn’t ready, and there’s no supporting ecosystem. For example, if you developed an online shopping app during the Web 1.0 era, you would surely fail before the advent of Web 2.0. Firstly, people didn’t have the habit of using the internet for shopping, and secondly, you wouldn’t have had supporting services to sustain your business (like mobile payment or logistics systems). Similarly, early attempts at virtual reality (VR) technology in the 90s, while conceptually appealing, failed to become mainstream due to high hardware costs, immature technology, and a lack of content.
✅ So, What Matters?
Since the idea isn’t the most crucial, entrepreneurs should focus their energy on:
- Ability to Solve Real Problems: Deeply understand and effectively solve the pain points of your target users. For example, Airbnb’s founders solved the problem of expensive accommodation for travelers and idle resources for hosts by renting out their spare rooms. Uber addressed the difficulty and inconvenience of getting a taxi. Both focused on solving real, existing pain points.
- Team and Talent: A group of like-minded individuals with complementary skills is the cornerstone of success. Consider Google’s co-founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin; their collaboration and complementary abilities were key to Google’s success. A strong team can compensate for an inadequate idea, overcome difficulties together, and turn an idea into reality.
- Learning and Adaptability: Maintain a strong ability to learn, adapt to market changes, and flexibly adjust strategies.
- User-Centric Thinking and Iteration: Put the user at the center, listen to their voices, understand their needs. Continuously optimize products and services through rapid trial and error and agile iterations to meet constantly changing user demands.
- Resource Integration and Fundraising Capability: Effective integration of resources—whether capital, connections, or technology—is crucial for entrepreneurship. Additionally, being able to clearly articulate your vision and potential to investors and secure necessary funding is an indispensable skill on the entrepreneurial journey.
▶️ Stop “Secrecy,” Act Now!
Stop obsessing over “protecting” an unverified idea. Instead, boldly share your idea, launch your project as quickly as possible (validate with a Minimum Viable Product MVP), and focus on execution and learning. Remember: An idea itself is worthless, but putting it into practice and continuously optimizing it is what creates real value.
✨ Medium Version (for Social Media): Your Startup Idea Doesn’t Matter
In the startup world, we often overvalue the “brilliant” idea, spending endless hours perfecting it and guarding it secretively. The truth is, your startup idea isn’t as important as you think; in fact, hardly anyone cares about the idea itself.
Why the idea is secondary:
- Execution trumps all: What truly matters is how you bring the idea to life, your resilience, and your adaptability. A great idea without strong execution is just a thought. Think of Apple’s Newton vs. Palm Pilot – similar concepts, vastly different execution and outcomes.
- No truly new ideas: The market is saturated. Most concepts have been explored. Success often comes from optimizing existing models or targeting niche markets, not from inventing something entirely new.
- Ideas evolve: Your initial concept will inevitably change based on market feedback and user needs. YouTube, for example, started as a dating site before transforming into the video platform it is today.
- Market validation is key: The market, not your personal belief, determines an idea’s worth. Get your concept out there quickly to gather real user feedback.
What truly matters:
- Solving real problems: Focus on addressing genuine pain points for your target audience, like Airbnb solving accommodation issues or Uber simplifying transport.
- A strong, adaptable team: A good team can overcome a mediocre idea, adapt to challenges, and pivot when necessary.
- Continuous learning and iteration: The startup landscape changes rapidly. Your ability to learn, adapt, and refine your product based on user feedback is crucial.
- Resource integration: Effectively leveraging capital, connections, and technology.
So, stop guarding your idea! Share it, launch quickly with a Minimum Viable Product (MVP), and relentlessly focus on execution and learning. An idea only gains true value when it’s put into practice and continuously improved.
