What Is An Idea Really Worth?

What Is An Idea Really Worth?

Quora is a website that allows anyone to ask any question for their peers to answer. It swings from the silly to the serious as you can imagine. One of the most common questions I'm asked to answer is the value of an idea. Just the idea. Not a product or service based on an idea, a blank sheet of paper with words on it that represent a thought.

Value of an idea?

The question is a good one. We all feel that we have the capacity to be creative and clever and develop something that is the route to fame and fortune. But there are issues with this train of thought:

[a] If we can imagine something that we don't have the skills to develop ourselves, how does that effect the potential value of the idea?

[b] If we tell someone the idea in the attempt to get someone with the skills we need to help, do we dilute the value of the idea - and if we continue to add people to create the solution, do we continue to dilute the value?

[c] If we have multiple ideas that connect, does that multiply the value?

As with a lot of the things I write about, there is a punch coming, so here it is:

Your idea is worth absolutely nothing ... regardless

Ideas are worthless without a way to execute them. There is no value at all in an idea that isn't made. There are number of well quoted entrepreneurs on this subject who all feel the same way on this, most notably Seth Godin who put 999 of his own ideas on line.  You can see that list of ideas here.

Execution of an idea 

The counter side to theory of ideas being worthless is that execution of ideas is priceless. Anyone skilled enough to take a concept through to completion and deliver it to the market is worth their weight in gold. These people are few in number, harder to find and even harder to hang on to, yet, we all need them.

The whole dichotomy is expressed beautifully in this diagram by Derek Sivers:

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.

Generating new ideas

I'm not suggesting with all this that you don't try and come up with new business ideas and innovation - its the life blood of not only business but of humanity. What I am suggesting is that there is a package of things that dictate if an idea is of any value.  A phrase I use a lot when I'm lecturing or mentoring students is:

"There is a fundamental difference between a good idea and a commercial one and you need to learn the difference."

Its vital for the purposes of not spending time and money on something that can not be delivered or profitable. Its unlikely that most people can have an idea and deliver it themselves - although increasingly as tools get better, digital products are getting closer in that respect. 

When you next think you've struck on an idea you should be sharing and mobilising all the people you know to help deliver it, not putting your efforts into keeping it a secret.