Ideas Are Easy... Execution Is Difficult
Excellent post by Mike Masnick on Techdirt:
It's an ongoing theme around here, but ideas are everywhere. The real trick to making something great often has extremely little to do with the idea, and much more to do with the execution. That's where the real innovation occurs -- in taking an idea and trying to figure out how to make it useful. It's that process that's important, much more than the original idea. As nearly anyone who has brought a product from conception to market will tell you, what eventually succeeds in the market is almost always radically different than the original "idea." That's part of the reason why patents are so often harmful to innovation. The patent is for that core idea, which is rarely the key in making something successful. But by limiting who can innovate off of the idea (or just by making it much more expensive) you're limiting that process of innovation. ... [A]s the founder of [failed company] Cambrian House admitted in explaining the company's changing plans, it wasn't difficult to get people to come up with all sorts of interesting and exciting ideas -- but where the company failed was in getting anyone to actually execute on any of those ideas. Ideas are a starting point -- but it's high time that we stopped worshipping the idea, and started recognizing how much more important execution is in driving innovation.
Jeff Tucker makes a similar point in his article Is Intellectual Property the Key to Success?:
A clue to the copyright fallacy should be obvious from wandering through a typical bookstore chain. You will see racks and racks of classic books, presented with beautiful covers, fancy bindings, and in a variety of sizes and shapes. The texts therein are "public domain," which isn't a legal category as such: it only means the absence of copyright protection. ... But they sell. They sell well. ... The much-predicted disaster of an anti-IP world is nowhere in evidence: there are still profits, gains from trade, and credit is given where credit is due. Why is this? Quite simply, the bookstore has gone to the trouble of bringing the book to market. It paid the producer for the book and made an entrepreneurial decision to take a risk that people will buy it. Sure, anyone could have done it, but the fact is that not everyone has....
As Tucker observed to me--this whole issue speaks directly to the Kirznerian vs. Hülsmannian view of entrepreneurship, and also the Hayekian vs. Salernoian view of calculation.
Or, as my "little buddy"* Gil Guillory wrote me,
This is a key point in VC partner, multiple entrepreneur, and author Rob Adam's A Good Hard Kick in the Ass: Basic Training for Entrepreneurs. The very first chapter is "good ideas are a dime a dozen", with lots of good anecdotes and rules of thumb. One of them: at his VC company, if someone asks them to sign an NDA, they see it as a red flag. What's most important, he says, is having a good execution team. A good execution team is what they fund, even if the idea is not that hot. They'll find a winning idea with a good team. And this is also what Napoleon Hill wrote. And Carnegie. And Martha Stewart. And Jim Collins."
*My 4 year old referred to him and Tom Woods that way after a Boston Legalesque sleepover.
Comments (6)
ktibuk
Execution is embedded with many ideas themselves. Of course it is never enough to leave the seemingly simple core idea as it is. Finishing a product involves many more ideas implied in the "execution".
Or are insuniating that execution part is aimless effort divorced of ideas, reason?
It is really pathetic to dis ideas, thinking, etc just to attack IP. But I guess when you run out of ideas attacking IP, it is inevitable.
Published: May 17, 2008 4:17 AM
ktibuk
"Ideas Are Easy... Execution Is Difficult"
Or In other words, discovering the need for soil to be aired and designing the plow is easy. It is the ox doing the execution, thus doing what is really difficult and important.
:-)
Published: May 17, 2008 4:22 AM
Jon
Because without government privileges, no farmer would try to invent a tractor to make their work easier...
Published: May 17, 2008 4:41 PM
Kevin
I think the point of focusing on execution - and to your straw man argument re: the ox and the plow; is that the idea to create a device for an ox to pull in order to aerate and turn packed soil is one thing, while actually producitng a device that is affordable enough to be used and marketing that device is much more important. Replacing the wooden plow with the precision manufactured steel plow was not so much a new idea as better execution of a MUCH older idea.
Published: May 17, 2008 8:18 PM
Mike D.
Patents stifle innovation? Two easy way to save gas
1. Check your tire pressure every time you fill up. New cars even have low tire pressure warning. Inflating your tires is a pain. So why not put a high pressure reservoir inside the tire rim so that it does it automatically? Why has such a simple solution not been adopted? Chances are someone filed a patent and then did nothing.
2. Tuning shops will reprogram your car's computer chip to improve horsepower an increase gas mileage. Manufacturers usually have the chips sub-optimally set so that the engine will run on a variety of fuels. So why not re-program you chip every time you fill up from information on the gas pump- as easy as downloading ring tones for your cellphone. Why is this not available? Chances are someone filed a patent.
Published: May 18, 2008 12:06 PM
Artisan
You do write well Mr. Tucker, and still you're not to be mistaken with Shakespeare.
Assuming that random "ideas" or "words" are the core of intellectual property rights and assuming therefore that a body of poetic work "owes" to everybody, is a very "poor" characterization of Art and of property.
Do you assume that physical property in fact stretches over random molecules? (But then of course, electricity cannot be sold, houses cannot be rented)
It's quite an ugly concept and a misinterpretation of everything I have ever read in von Mises.
Patent is monopoly over a FUNCTION (not an idea) in fact, therefore it could be considered indeed to conflict with free will principles I believe.
Copyright is monopoly over one's own IDENTITY resources, gained through homesteading. Therefore it cannot hurt any individual freedom principle... just like trademark wouldn't.
Published: May 19, 2008 2:13 AM