QOTD: Do you need a big idea to succeed?

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Permalink Reply by Perry Ismangil on October 2, 2008 at 9:20am

Yes.

Having said that, I will qualify that 'big' is relative :)

For customers, something as simple as a 'faster' product, is big enough. Nothing fancy, just by proposing that by using this product he/she can get things done in half the time is way better than offering fancy stuffs but actually slows them down.

For other customers, the problem is not speed, maybe, but lack of interop. So a product offering interoperability/conformance to certain standards is 'big'.

So the 'big' idea is: solve a problem.

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Permalink Reply by Dave Collins on October 2, 2008 at 12:38pm

No. Definitely not.

"Minor improvements" or " just better" can work just as well.

And plenty of good ideas never take off.

Personally I think it's more about marketing, but I'm biased...

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Permalink Reply by Maureen Bruen on October 2, 2008 at 4:24pm

No. With the right business/marketing tactics and strategies and a good small idea, anything is possible.

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Permalink Reply by Mark on October 2, 2008 at 8:36pm

Maureen Bruen said:

No. With the right business/marketing tactics and strategies and a good small idea, anything is possible.

Except the big part of the idea may be the marketing or strategy - in fact it seems this is often the case with novel implementations of pretty simple small ideas.

I'm not sure if it's the idea that needs to be big, or the potential impact of whatever you're doing. In retrospect this also seems predicated on defining success as achieving a game-changing type of impact. There are lots of very boring, very basic companies out there making lots of $, so if that's your measure of success...

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Permalink Reply by Maureen Bruen on October 2, 2008 at 9:54pm

Measure of Success = Happy Clients + Lots of $

Any other definitions?

Mark said:

Maureen Bruen said:

No. With the right business/marketing tactics and strategies and a good small idea, anything is possible.

Except the big part of the idea may be the marketing or strategy - in fact it seems this is often the case with novel implementations of pretty simple small ideas.

I'm not sure if it's the idea that needs to be big, or the potential impact of whatever you're doing. In retrospect this also seems predicated on defining success as achieving a game-changing type of impact. There are lots of very boring, very basic companies out there making lots of $, so if that's your measure of success...

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Permalink Reply by Corey Reid on October 3, 2008 at 6:16pm

I seem to recall this coming up during the seminar this year and somebody (forget if it was Dharmesh or someone else) mentioned that virtually all companies ended up doing something totally different than their original "big idea" anyway.

But maybe there needs to be a big idea initially anyway, just to get excitement high enough to get everyone going in the first place.

I'm more interested in process and culture than product, so for me, a "big idea" is about how to lay out the desks and how to run meetings.

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Permalink Reply by Nick Baldwin on October 4, 2008 at 5:16pm

To be brief, I think the idea only needs to be as big as the pain your current/future customers are feeling. I think the more important adjectives are "smart" and "simple".

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Permalink Reply by Phil Factor on October 5, 2008 at 7:32pm

I think that a big idea is necessary but not sufficient. For example, the big idea needs big marketing to succeed. Software companies have to sustain that big idea to survive. I cannot think of any successful company that maintained their success whilst diluting their creativity and innovation. I've seen many fail by losing their creative 'edge'.

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Permalink Reply by Ken Hughes on October 6, 2008 at 12:51pm

If you can do everything yourself (or fund it yourself) then no.
If you need a partner(s) to get it moving (who are willing to work for free/potential future revenue) then yes.

.. KJ

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Permalink Reply by Brian Swanson on October 7, 2008 at 5:08am

To butcher a common saying "Success is in the eye of the stockholder"

$100,000 in annual revenues could be a huge success for a one-man iPhone app developer who still has a full-time job. But Microsoft wouldn't bother getting into that same business (writing a competing app).

We've got a piece of software that we've written in partnership with another company. It sells for $495/license, and is an EXTREME niche product. Total development time for us was 5 hours, and really all the program does is automate a bunch of steps that could be accomplished in 5 minutes a day (after intial setup) with other free software that is available. We've sold 30 licenses so far, and are about to sign a deal with the company whose customers we are marketing too, that will require all of their new customers to purchase a license from us. It's NOT a big idea, but I consider that a smashing success, considering the amount of effort all concerned parties have involved.

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Permalink Reply by Melissa Tan on October 13, 2008 at 5:42pm

One of the most interesting things I took out of the conference (Jessica's talk springs to mind) is that you don't need a 'big' idea... you just need one idea that you stick with. At least, that's what I'm hoping...

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Permalink Reply by Mohammed Mudassir Azeemi on October 13, 2008 at 8:36pm

Find the niche in the haystack will make the business success! Even if the niche market target only small group. Success is not "how much $$$$ per month" business is generating, it is about "How sustainable it is".

Just my two-cents.

Mudassir Azeemi,
San Francisco Bay Area

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