Your idea sucks, now go do it

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Someone on Newtech posted this interesting blog post from 2008 (an oldie but a goodie) – Odds are, your idea probably sucks, so hurry up and go do it.  From what I understand, VC’s and Angels expect about 20% of their investments to be home runs, 30% to get their money back, and 50% to outright fail… and these are the experts!  Given that I don’t see as many ideas as VC’s and angels do, I give myself a 20% chance of succeeding.  What this means is I need to keep throwing stuff out there till something sticks! I need to keep failing in order to figure out what the hell works, or what I’m doing wrong.

This is definitely easier said than done.  It’s so painful …  I’m in the middle of it.  It’s a lot of self exploration,  a lot of feeling inadequate and lots of ‘What the hell am I going to do with my life if this doesn’t work?’.    I feel your pain.  One mental trick that I use on myself to keep me in the game is thinking that the closer I get to 8 failures, the likelihood of success becomes higher :) .  So I keep trying things… I keep failing… toward the hope that just one will succeed.

If anyone else has thoughts on increasing their success %, I’d love to hear it!

  • http://blog.asmartbear.com Jason Cohen

    Old? I’m an oldie??? :-)

    Thanks for the kind words, and of course you’re right to just forge ahead.

    One note on your VC stats — actually that’s nowhere near the record of a typical VC firm. Mike Maples (one of the more famous, vocal, and rich VCs) says he expects 9% success, 91% complete waste of money, and maybe 1 or 2 big home runs.

    But you’re being unfair as to why. It’s not because “the experts” can’t pick the winner. It’s because they’re intentionally going for HUGE exits, and if you want to gamble big you’ll often lose big. It’s a reasonable bet…. for them.

    But what you (and I) am interested in is to maximize the chance of having some outcome — modest is fine. That’s a reasonable bet to — one that makes more sense for the individual founder rather than a portfolio of companies.

    In the end of course you’re on the correct path. “What am I doing with my life if it doesn’t work?” Answer: You’re doing what almost no one does — reach further, push yourself so far it’s uncomfortable, have life experiences almost no one has, experience joy equal in magnitude to the pain.

    In other words, you’re alive and doing something interesting, not wasting away in a job you hate for a company you don’t care about.

    That’s reason alone.

  • http://twitter.com/asmartbear Jason Cohen

    Old? I'm an oldie??? :-)

    Thanks for the kind words, and of course you're right to just forge ahead.

    One note on your VC stats — actually that's nowhere near the record of a typical VC firm. Mike Maples (one of the more famous, vocal, and rich VCs) says he expects 9% success, 91% complete waste of money, and maybe 1 or 2 big home runs.

    But you're being unfair as to why. It's not because “the experts” can't pick the winner. It's because they're intentionally going for HUGE exits, and if you want to gamble big you'll often lose big. It's a reasonable bet…. for them.

    But what you (and I) am interested in is to maximize the chance of having some outcome — modest is fine. That's a reasonable bet to — one that makes more sense for the individual founder rather than a portfolio of companies.

    In the end of course you're on the correct path. “What am I doing with my life if it doesn't work?” Answer: You're doing what almost no one does — reach further, push yourself so far it's uncomfortable, have life experiences almost no one has, experience joy equal in magnitude to the pain.

    In other words, you're alive and doing something interesting, not wasting away in a job you hate for a company you don't care about.

    That's reason alone.

  • http://www.udfi.biz/ David Wang

    Jason,

    Thanks for commenting on my blog! You are 100% correct, I’ve found myself pushed to the edges and am learning and experiencing so much more than I have before I started this.

    Also, while I haven’t had a success like you have yet, I do find little pockets of joy when other entrepreneurs like yourself reply on my blog! So again, thanks for replying!

    -d

  • http://www.udfi.biz/ David Wang

    Jason,

    Thanks for commenting on my blog! You are 100% correct, I've found myself pushed to the edges and am learning and experiencing so much more than I have before I started this.

    Also, while I haven't had a success like you have yet, I do find little pockets of joy when other entrepreneurs like yourself reply on my blog! So again, thanks for replying!

    -d