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20Jul/08N/A5

“It’s about execution…”

You hear it every day by VCs, entrepreneurs, and strategists...

"It's not about the idea... it's about the execution of it."

Entrepreneurs who still need to learn this lesson should look no farther than this post from Paul Graham called "Startup Ideas We'd Like to Fund."

In this post, Paul lists 30 ideas (more like concepts) which need to have real businesses behind them. "30 free business ideas from Paul Graham?!" you may ask, wondering if he's gone crazy, giving away such valuable information.

But the ideas are not the point, it's how and whether or not you execute on them.

For example, the following bullets (click through to read Paul's details on each) are ideas which I've had detailed and explicit business ideas for:

3. New news.

7. Something your company needs that doesn't exist.

12. Fix advertising.

17. New payment methods.

23. More open alternatives to Wikipedia.

29. Easy site builders for specific markets.

30. Startups for startups.

So, of course these are problems, and of course I would have had specific and plausible ideas for how to address each one of them; however, that's not the point. The point is what I or you or anyone else ends up doing.

The real signs of an entrepreneur, therefore, is someone who does. You don't have to do right, but you have to do -- and your fabulous idea... well, that's not enough.

About Nate Westheimer

Nate is the Co-Founder and EVP of Product & Technolog for AnyClip. He is also the Organizer of the 13,000 member NY Tech Meetup.
Filed under: Entrepreneurship Leave a comment
  • Def agree with "how and whether or not you do it". Though you have to actually decide to do it first, and then you can adjust for the how later. But getting over that first part, and actually executing is a huge hump.
  • Here's two related posts at Venture Hacks.

    http://venturehacks.com/articles/idea-investors
    http://venturehacks.com/articles/idea-comments

    People that invest in ideas generally fall into the Friends, Family, Fools category. Investors want to see traction, and some success first. Build a product, get some sales, get some user/customer interest, get some press, etc!
  • I agree 1,000 % ... except for the 'just do' bit. Speaking as someone who's built gobs of little projects and a couple of small companies, I think it does matter if you 'do' right...

    Just doing is better than just thinking about it...but just doing the right things right is still unbeatable. If all it took was action, more startups would survive (and there would be more action from everyone).
  • And I agree 1000% that "doing it right" is important! Of course "doing" is the first part ;-)
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Who is Nate?

You've found Nate Westheimer's blog. Nate wears many hats. He's the EVP Product & Technology and Co-founder of AnyClip, the Organizer of the NY Tech Meetup, and Advisor to Flybridge Capital Partners. More about Nate can be read on his Bio page and you can follow his thoughts on Twitter

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