Share your idea, nobody will care anyway.

Don’t worry about protecting your idea; it’s very likely that it will fail.

I went to a Startup event a couple of months ago named the Startup Canada in Ottawa. It was a typical event, with great speakers, lots of energetic folks moving around in a room with good food and a noisy crowd. The interaction was normal, including business cards, elevators pitches, and friendly people. But then, something happened that caught my attention. I was talking with a young entrepreneur about my projects, and when I asked him about his projects, the answer was: “Sorry, I can’t tell you about my idea because it’s very revolutionary.” I was shocked because he was so protective over his idea in a place that was meant to share ideas.

Well, here’s a fact. Nobody cares about you or your idea. Generating an idea is the easiest action for creative people. They need only a little input, and they can produce a product idea in 5 minutes. You can test it, call any friend right now ask if he/she has a new idea for an App or Site. You will get lots of them.

Google, in 1996, was just a seed of something big. Ideas are like seeds. They’re commodities that you can find everywhere, what matters is the execution, that’s very hard.

An idea is just a blueprint of a product. Like a seed, that has the potencial to be a tree, but it still has a long way to go.

If your idea is very easy to copy, it may be is not a good idea at all.

That’s the point, if you’re protecting your idea because of it's too easy to implement, don’t worry, is very likely that it was already implemented. If you have only one good idea, sorry but you aren’t an entrepreneur. What you are looking for is a low-risk business that is like a franchise.

Why do you need to share all your best ideas right now:

• To get feedback. And if everybody agrees with your view, you have a great reason to move forward.
• Extend your idea with new possibilities.
• Find somebody who is willing to pay you right now for it. 
• Practicing your pitch is the only way to have a great pitch.
• Explain to others how you will be executing the idea and listen carefully to what other people have to say about it.

Given that takes lots of effort to implement an idea, no one will invest time in other ideas.

Why is execution more important than ideas?

What you learn in the process to transform an idea in a real product is far more important that the product itself. Your ability to fail fast, and adjust your actions to do it better, is fundamental to transform your ideas in something real.

Facebook, Paypal, and many other successful companies started as something very different that they are right now, what they did better than their competitors was failing and adapting so fast that they were able to use that as a strength.

However, don’t underestimate the real challenge. More than 90% of technology startups fail in the first two years, and that could be okay if you, as an entrepreneur, has more that one good idea in your pocket and use your resilience superpower to continue.