I love ideas. Ideas tat keep me up at night. Ideas that fill me with a sense of immediacy and doing. The energizing, “Why hasn’t anyone thought of this before?” sort of idea. Even the relatively good to great ideas that come in a stream of insight are great. They seem to be just the thing, and when the light bulb goes on, I find I have to write ’em down quick, otherwise, they will skitter away before I know it.
Ideas are tricky. Sometimes, they seem to come at the right time. Other times, they need to marinate a bit before they can be put into use, and sometimes, you need to give them away to see them really be used and become reality, not just dreams.
And worst of all, some ideas seem great, and they might be, but when you start to work out the details, it turns out it’s not a great business plan. Either it takes too much work at too high a price to make it profitable, or the market isn’t there for it, or the margins are bad, or it takes more infrastructure to get going than you have available right now. Again, it may be a great idea for someday or someone else, but not you, not now.
That can be incredibly frustrating. You see an idea- see something that is possible, but it’s not really yours to execute on, for a myriad of reasons. You sometimes may even contemplate making it work, but it turns out forcing the situation is worse than leaving it alone. Forcing an idea into early flower can end up costing you not only money and time, but your belief in the dream/idea in the first place. It may still be a perfectly good idea, but the timing is wrong.
Sometimes, you have to listen to advice and give up on these ideas. Ideas that should have worked. ideas that could work, if the right pieces were in place. Ideas that would do better if there were just more capital available to keep it going until it reaches critical mass. (Almost every new business loses money for a few years until it starts turning a profit. Internet companies aren’t really exceptions to this rule.)
Ideas have their own siren song, and can be addicting. Keep them recorded, in Evernote, in moleskeins, in Journals like Darwin, Jefferson, Franklin, and others kept, where they could go back and review their thoughts later on, find connections and make bigger things come to life. Let each one have its time, but make sure they take their turns and don’t all crowd for your attention at once. because like toddlers, they’re all kind of selfish and don’t like to share. But if you don;t care and feed each idea, one or two at a time, they won’t grow and succeed like they could have otherwise.
Be patient. Ideas always come. They’re cheap. It’s implementation and success that are harder and trickier to achieve, and they deserve all your attention, rather than getting distracted by the next idea fighting for your focus.
Line up those ideas and keep them organized, and success will be right behind.