Innovation, ideas and execution

It's funny to hear people sometimes say that social networking is such a recent thing, only a decade or so old. Guys, we've been doing it for ages! I remember myself blogging with friends and using instant-messaging and sharing photos and doing all that stuff that's called "web two-point-oh" since the first days I connected to www. Well, not as much picture sharing in the old days of dial-up, but that's irrelevant. If you think about facebook, there was absolutely nothing revolutionary about the idea of connecting people online - it's been done before by MySpace, Friendster, Livejournal, etc. E-mail for Christ sake! Remember, back in the day facebook didn't even have the instant messaging system and status updates - stuff that makes a very big part of it now! Actually, here's a very good article by Mark Suster (yes, I'm a fan) that covers everything that I said and a lot more.

Listening to young people talk about social networking as a new phenomenon is a bit like hearing people talk about a remake of a famous song from my youth as though it was the original version.  If you think “Don’t Stop Believing” was first recorded on the show Glee I’m talking to you.

What made facebook so big was not as much the idea as the execution:

• bring it all together
• one page per person
• no nicknames, only your real name
• initially exclusive to students
• free picture sharing
• Events and groups

And, most importantly, all that - combined in one resource. Brilliant!

"Are you on facebook?"
"No, what's that?"
"It's a website, helps you keep in touch with your friends. Come on, everyone is there, can you pass me your laptop?"

Speaking about ideas and innovation, many people say "yeah, maybe I'd want to start a business one day, but I don't have any ideas, and you really need a good one", or "Why the hell would I/you want to do this, it's been already done by ... !". How many times do you think Zuckaberg heard "dude, how is what you're working on actually different from Myspace?". I don't know, but probably a lot.

Ideas are nothing: they don't cost anything and they are not protected by IP in most countries. Execution is everything: it's what brings revenues and changes the world we live in.

Ideas are for everyone: life is full of problems, which could be solved. If it's something a bit more trivial than a fatal disease, it could be solved by you. But all of us prefer to ignore most of them. Because execution is for chosen ones: very few of us can execute and ship the solution.

Ideas are easy. Execution is hard.

Having a "good idea" is essential though because it's the only thing that's going to motivate you and without motivation, face it, you will never ship, so don't even try. From this angle, it's enough for the "good idea" to sound only good to you, and, perhaps, people who are going to be working with you. "It's been done before"? Not the way you'd do it! Although I'm no way I'm arguing against opportunity assessment and market research: it's absolutely essential and helps you figure out how to do it. Being bold helps as well, I guess. Well, that's what the "big guys" say:)