Ideas Evolve

Noah Brier has a great post about how GREAT ideas evolve. They aren't born or hatched. They start in someone's head and they mutate as they travel out into the world from person to person.

This touches on two very real misperceptions that I think people have about business.

1. Protect your ideas. If you have a good one, don't tell anyone. WRONG. WRONG. WRONG. If you have a good one, the first thing you should do is get some feedback from people that will tell you it is a stupid idea. At the end of the conversation, you'll most likely have ten other ideas to pursue.

2. Perfect it before you show anyone. Perfect it before you talk about it.  There is no such thing as perfection. Get a little piece out there and see what people think. Build in the direction where people are receptive.

All that said, I also think it is very rare to find a company or individual that continues to evolve and execute on new ideas, once they are successful. Which is why succesful companies don't seem to have new ideas. They have them. They just lack the courage to evolve them.

How this relates to WhizSpark: we are about to launch a new piece of functionality which will take this and mash it up with this. We are also launching two new marketing campaigns and testing their effectiveness by spending a few dollars/day on google adwords and a bit of search engine optimization. All this is happening while we are getting the largest volume of referrals and leads we've ever received. The challenge we have is: can we continue to evolve our ideas, while growing the bu$iness.  This is the challenge I've observed in almost every established business. (Not that we are established.)

Comments

[Noah Brier]

Glad you enjoyed the entry, Pete. Also, thought you'd enjoy this Gapingvoid entry about how good ideas shift the balance of power.

[Peter Caputa]

Thanks Noah! I have to start reading Hugh's blog more closely.