…or at least get it off the ground and be able to take credit (and maybe a few bucks) for inventing the service.
We all get ideas from time to time but I’m really unsure of how to sell my ideas, and more importantly, protect them.
I’ve got 2 brilliant (I think, in my delusional world) ideas for web services that I think would gain a ton of business. Honestly, I believe they may be suitable for someone such as Google or Microsoft. But, gah, that’s just scary to think about… In other words, one site would be the equivalent of Ebay, while the other would be equivalent to Amazon (but no inventory) – truly massive businesses, not just something a programmer could throw together in a week.
I may not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but I often get great ideas that only later become a reality but I never get to take credit for them because an idea is absolutely worthless unless acted upon, and I’ve never really done so, yet. Let’s just say I’m quite sick of watching all of my potential millions go into the hands of others because I didn’t do anything about it.
If you had an idea, and no immediate funding, what would you do to get the ball rolling?
If you go in as one guy with an idea, you won’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting funding. You will need a prototype and a team to have a reasonable shot. Unless you’re already independently wealthy, that probably means taking your company on as an unpaid second job, and convincing someone else to do the same.
Edit: Your local university’s business school should have an office for start ups and small businesses. Talk to them.
Are you working in the field already, or are you coming at this from a ‘man in his shed’ direction. The people I know who make money from ideas / IP are in a totally different field - (physical sciences and biotech), but they share some characteristics. None of them are outsiders - they’ve either come up through industry or academia and they all speak the right language of innovation for their relevant communities. They’ve got ideas on tap, but crucially they can evaluate each idea for novelty / IP position / funding etc etc. Science is maybe more exclusionary in this sense than web / software, but I guess that the principle still holds.
Surely the thing to do is to finagle an interview with Microsoft or Google on the basis of idea 1 - show them your arse with the brilliance of the thing and get hired. Then you’re into the system and get to understand how innovation works, get to build credibilty for yourself as a creative force. After a year or two, you get your ducks in a row and hit the bricks to sell idea 2 (in reality it will be idea 22) to people who will take you seriously.
I’d start making it. Websites require almost zero startup capital. $8 to register the domain name and $10/month for hosting to start.
Sorry to rain on your parade, but there’s an unfortunate tendency to believe that it’s possible to be successful simply by having good ideas. It really isn’t. It’s implementation that counts. Successful people have lots of good ideas, of course, but they actually make them happen. Occasionally they do so by convincing other people to work on them, but most of the time they have to put in a significant amount of work themselves before anyone else buys in.
If you don’t know how to write a website, either find someone who does and convince them to work on it with you, or start reading. There’s plenty of information about how to make websites online. If you can’t offer the whole service that you want to offer, start small. If you can’t even offer any services without some corporate backing, at least mock up a system, or (better) find a new idea.
This is going to be the least popular idea in the thread, but here it is anyway:
Make a business plan. Make your goal, not the creation of the business, but the creation of a business plan. With a really thorough business plan, you can get funding. But that is step, say, 23. Step one is to make a business plan.
