Wait a minute: a version of this was originally published in our email newsletter in July 2020. If you don’t want to miss out on ideas that get you thinking differently, subscribe for free.
When I was an investor at one of our national television stations (holding the heady telly title of ‘Commissioner’) I received endless pitches of ideas. About 3000 a year.
Nearly every one of them was a terrible idea. I came to realise that all ideas are terrible at the start. It’s the quality of the team developing them that turns a terrible idea into a good one.
I was reminded again of this as I listened to Netflix co-founder Marc Randolph speak to Steven Bartlett.
“The idea becomes so large and ornate and complicated in their head, that they say they need $5m… to build absolutely the wrong thing.”
Most people develop their ideas alone. It’s a delicate time.
If you hold onto your ideas too tightly for too long then you end up blind to new ideas and opportunities around you.
You don’t seek out feedback that might tell you it’s a terrible idea. And when you get feedback you’re deaf to it. Above all, if your idea doesn’t work in the end, you’re stuck with it, and with no time or resources to develop something better, quickly.
If you think your idea is probably terrible, it dies there and then.
If you assume that all ideas are largely pretty bad when they’re born, then all that’s left is to decide how you want to test it.
My advice? Test as many ideas as often as possible, and only go with the ones that turn from ugly duckling to something that’s genuinely more promising because it passes the test of discussion, dialogue and trial-and-error.
The world is entering yet another uncertain economic period. There’s less money than there was before for public services in many economies.
So the idea of investing at this moment in time in as many ideas as you can might seem counterintuitive.
Everyone is short on time.
Money is feeling tight.
And everyone, it seems, wants everything done by yesterday.
There’s a designer’s saying that you can only ever have two of speed, quality or cheap prices. In short, if you want the job done quickly be prepared for a bigger bill (because no designer wants to produce mediocrity). But sometimes, producing bad work is the best way to test ideas.
If you want to go fast, then you’ll either needs lots of cash and people, along with one ambitious idea. You’ll fail or succeed quickly, but you’ll use up a lot of resources trying.
If you want to go cheap, then be prepared to be the tortoise, and work with several ideas before placing your bets on one or two of them.
What’s your combo?