Part of creating a new idea is trying to kill the idea after a while.
Now, I know that sounds counterintuitive.
But at the end of the day, you don’t want to work on something that someone else has built or someone else has solved.
Because it shows that it might be new to you, but it’s not new to the world.
So one of the ways to do that is to do research to really look at who are the competitors try their different products, and try it out.
Good analogy to think about, it’s like imagining you had just tasted a bottle of wine, and it is the best bottle of wine that you’ve ever had. And yet at the same time, it’s your first bottle of wine.
And so you’re trying to tell everyone around you that this is the most incredible bottle of wine. And you don’t have a palette, which means you haven’t tasted other bottles of wine.
So you can’t tell the difference between this bottle of wine, and 20 other different bottles of wine is very different. Once you have a palette to say this is better than this, or this is better than that.
You have a sense of refinement and a sense of nuance.
Research allows you to have that sense of refinement.
that sense of nuance, and allows you to build a better product.
You owe it to your customers to know that there are different solutions out there and—you can talk about why yours is the best!
But you also have to understand that if yours isn’t the best, that if yours isn’t better than others, that you as a trusted adviser, someone who your client is going to believe in, it is your duty to build the best product or let them know that yours doesn’t measure up and find a way to solve that.
Because what you cannot sell Lee is the trust that they give you that is worth more than the initial money they give you or the money throughout.
Simply because, TRUST can be the foundation for a long term relationship and a long term financial relationship.
However, trust is lost because of:
- poor product
- poor conversations and judgment
- poor soft skills in handling of the situation can instantly get rid of any future financial prospects.
So in summary, try to kill your idea fast.
Now, that also assumes that you have you know, sat with it fleshed it out, enjoyed the initial hive coming up with the new idea and think it’s unique and new.
Enjoy that.
But then it’s also don’t get high on your supply!
if you will, you know sit there and try to kill the idea.
Example: Jack Dorsey & Square
A great example of this is Jack Dorsey talking about square and he and his co founder after they had the initial idea and thought it was great, actually came up with 147 reasons why it wasn’t going to work.
And their rationale behind it was really simple. It’s if we do this upfront, and we do it before the investors do it or any other customers does it, we can bring up the fact that hey, we thought about 147 reasons why this isn’t gonna work. In fact, we built a slide deck, listed that out and we went through a point by point to completely agree with you that this isn’t going to work.
That’s the power behind that:
it’s kind of this counterintuitive thing of the more you rip at it, you’ll poke holes, the more this one thing will actually work.
Once you put it through the wringer if you will, or the gauntlet it’s the same idea. Because if you spawn one idea, chances are you’re going to spawn another!
It’s coming from this place of IDEA ABUNDANCE intent instead of IDEA SCARITY!
Summary
- Idea Abundance over scarcity. Assume that you’re going to have more ideas come from a place of IDEA abundance, intent instead of ideas scarcity.
- Poke holes in the idea. After the initial beautiful period where you’re excited about the idea, that new idea, right, then go into poking holes in it and trying to kill it. And you could do that through competitive analysis.
Let me know what you think.