"Ideas for Startups" by Paul Graham

[anhinga_anhinga]

"Actually, startup ideas are not million dollar ideas, and here's an experiment you can try to prove it: just try to sell one. Nothing evolves faster than markets. The fact that there's no market for startup ideas suggests there's no demand. Which means, in the narrow sense of the word, that startup ideas are worthless."

quoted from
http://www.paulgraham.com/ideas.html (there is an unofficial paulgraham)

"It would be closer to the truth to say the main value of your initial idea is that, in the process of discovering it's broken, you'll come up with your real idea."

"Treating a startup idea as a question changes what you're looking for. If an idea is a blueprint, it has to be right. But if it's a question, it can be wrong, so long as it's wrong in a way that leads to more ideas."

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_rowan_tree_/]

"Treating a startup idea as a question changes what you're looking for. If an idea is a blueprint, it has to be right. But if it's a question, it can be wrong, so long as it's wrong in a way that leads to more ideas." - same goes for research proposals. Except it's even weaker: a research proposal is a question that shouldn't be treated as a question you are going to answer in your research, just as a starting point for more questions.

Off-top

[http://users.livejournal.com/_rowan_tree_/]

Now connection to the server where my e-mail lives is slow as anything, so checking my e-mail is quite a painful experience. Therefore I may disappear for a while until things improve. If anything... hmm... call?

Re: Off-top

[anhinga-anhinga.livejournal.com]

ok :-)