Ideas are cheap, development easy, so why aren't we rich?

This isn't an article about my experience, it's not an article to promote anything I have, and by no means is this meant to tell you what you should think. In fact, this has nothing to do with me, and I have nothing to gain by it. Does that make you feel better about reading this?

There's this nervous community out on the internet right now, a niche of entrepreneurs who are also developers. In a nutshell, people have coined this group of nerds and geeks, "hackers". The work that these people do cannot be replicated, outsourced, or specced out. These are the kind of weirdos who think of good, fun, and promising ideas, then execute with their own engineering abilities.

Coming up with a good idea is easy. It's not as easy as sitting in your chair right now, taking a break from reading this article, and thinking for maybe 10 minutes to come up with something amazing. Easy as in, anyone could do it. Anybody can sit and read about the world's problems, and think of solutions for them, then researching or already knowing (look at you) technology that can actually provide real means to the solution. It takes some time, and it takes a lot of brain juice, but other than some dedicated time, ideas cost nothing. They're cheap. You can trade them, give them out for free.

Development is pretty easy as well. Again, not as easy as programming off a specification that has all the right decisions and business goals supporting it all, but any competent developer out there can make basically anything. What are the limits here? Hardware and other technological barriers? Mostly. Otherwise it all works.

So when you have a great idea, and you have a great developer, you can make something amazing. Who cares? That's the hard part. The people who listen and like what you've made are those who already like you. People who already know who you are, and you are an actual person to them. Otherwise, if you have no crazy educational background, awards, job positions at big companies, nobody takes you seriously. The benefit of the doubt is not given. Every slight controversial or weak point in your product is seen as a direct reflection of the blemishes of your very existence. Worst of all, if the idea is sound, and the development if more solid, people doubt you. Reasons? Competition sure, or is it the denial that another person could possibly make something cool other than you? A person who has no name behind them? No funding? Can't be, the model must be flawed.

Sure I might be generalizing, or missing all the other great people who definitely don't think this way, but there's no doubt these kinds of feelings are present in a lot of communities of hackers out there.

So how do no names really get out there? Well whatever the answer to that is, there are a few things you should not do. Never, under any circumstance, try to promote your own product for yourself. People hate you immediately. If you're trying to sell something to somebody that makes you look good, makes you money, and might be useful to people, you will fail. If it's useful, people will find a way where it's not useful. If it's an amazing product, they will find the bugs and early issues and dismiss this as a newbie project that will get no recognition. If that's the reaction of the masses, no PR like techcrunch would ever fathom writing something good about your product.

That's not to say you shouldn't build something useful, it's the approach of telling the world about it that's different. Either you build something people think is fun, and they don't rely on, or you build something that will help others build their own projects better (stay away from Weddings, if you screw up the wedding, you've just messed up someone's entire life, hah). If you help people become successful so they can make a stronger pitch, they love you. Of course, if you make something ridiculously dumb, brainless, and worthless, they have no problem trying to prove their status over you with great suggestions of their own. But if you have something great, make it sound like it's for the masses.

So what was just said?

Don't promote yourself thinking others will love it on their own
Approach promotion by twisting your product into a tool to help others build cool stuff and turn it around as their own
Build something fun, not serious at all, that has no tool or function that people can use.
Be humble, and kiss ass

That all sounds kind of shallow, but there is some dignified and honorable stuff you can do aside from all that. Meet people, make friends, help create a community that supports one another, and really become a real person to as many people as you can. It's the usual social skills you learn in any peer group. Don't make enemies, make friends. Help one another out. Not every single move you make has to make you money. Learn from others, and lend a helping hand when you can. This is a slow process, meeting and making connections happens once every week maybe. But it all adds up.

At Browseology, we built a few things, that once twisted as a tool for other hackers to use, got much better recognition, such as the collaboration shopping tool http://browseology.com or the ability to add prestitial messages to your own websites with http://kiw.is/

The hacker community needs to stay a community. Support and community, really understanding one another is key. We aren't rich because we have cheap ideas, or can develop easily, we are rich because we have friends and support. We will never succeed with selfless promotion, so don't do it! Don't go out to places like Hackernews, TechCrunch, Mashable, etc hoping to pitch your idea. Instead go out there and see how your ideas will help others, to meet and integrate, connect, and provide something fun and interesting for everyone to be part of.

And always start everything out with a clear message: "This isn't for me, it's for you"

Jul 30, 2009

#s People said...

Very well written Art. Gotta go out on a limb here and say that it applies to all entrepreneurs even beyond the community of hackers.

Jul 31, 2009

lordvishal said...

I think this article needs to be much longer in order for you to complete any of the arguments that were presented in it. Try not to jump from one thought to another before completing the previous one. If you were trying to offer an explanation as to why certain hardworking hacker-entrepreneurs aren't rich, then please clarify. If on the other hand you were openly asking the question posed in the heading - then you haven't backed up the question adequately either. Seriously man.. wtf!?

krjx said...

I like some of the advice given in this article: avoid self promotion and build communities to help each other.

Tarek Amr said...

So, it's now how useful twitter is that makes it succeed, but it is how people can be successful using twitter that makes twitter succeed. It's all about the competitive environment twitter create between people to show the number of their followers and referrals they get, this is what makes people excited and willing to use twitter more.

zackham said...

Coming up with a vaguely good idea may be easy, and pushing out a more or less satisfactory implementation may be easy – and we have seen this many times. These are the products that get promoted shamelessly on the basis of their "potential," which as you point out, is just thinly veiled self-promotion (Sure my implementation isn't perfect, but *I* can take this idea to the next level if you become *my* member and supporter). Once you are willing to acknowledge that no user should believe that you will follow through with your promises, and that all you have to sell people on your idea is your current implementation, you become much humbler and it becomes less about you, and more about your product and its appeal to a particular target demographic. That being said, nailing down a vaguely good idea into an explicitly good idea and turning that proof-of-concept into a great implementation that strangers tell their friends about is anything but easy.

Aug 02, 2009

KiSKiLiSKiS said...

i must say. this is quite a read. i feel you dog...

Arthur Chang

Ideas are cheap, development easy, so why aren't we rich?

Arthur Chang

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