“I have a million dollar idea!”

29th October

In my life, I have met a lot of people with a million-dollar idea. What I usually hear is: “Let’s make a 50/50 joint venture.” I usually answer: "Ideas are cheap." And I don’t underestimate their ideas. Really. But in reality, there are a lot of great business ideas in anyone’s head. So why do some great ideas evolve into successful businesses and others don’t?

The answer is simple. It always boils down to the people that are executing that idea to become reality. People are the ones who will make it flourish or, in the majority of cases, fail miserably. When a fail happens, most teams look for excuses outside: “the market was not ready” or “competition was strong”… This goes against what we’ve learnt while building a billion dollar business.

If we look at why Outfit7 was successful, what we did was nothing revolutionary. We made entertainment apps in a market filled with existing apps that did the same as our Talking Tom: apps with talk back functionality, apps for taking care of your virtual friend… None of our products was really the first one of its kind on the market.

In the same way, Apple didn’t make the first smartphone, and Google didn’t make the first search engine.

What makes great products or services market leaders are the teams behind the idea.

To start with, it takes full dedication to the extent that sometimes you forget there are other things in life. The entire team needs to trust their idea and make it their hobby. They have to enjoy every minute of working on it.

Secondly, it takes a team that is aware of their differences, and knows that “different” is “good” — different people will bring different perspectives. Differences in a team represent a huge advantage. They usually also present a reason for failing: do you like your colleagues for being different or do you just tolerate them? If you look at the word “tolerate”, it has a very negative connotation. If you merely tolerate their differences, it means you do not accept them. That means you will also not accept their contributions. If you just tolerate them, you think you are better. The whole team should feel safe to share their opinions knowing that the power of argument will always win, and never the argument of power.

And lastly, great teams let go of the fear of failing. If you focus on failing, this is for sure what the universe will serve you 🙂

A team of people who trust each other, accept and like others for their differences, can work constructively on an idea and focus on its successful realization. You could even say they can manifest the same goal. But this is so rare that when you build a team like this, you are automatically better than 99% of your competitors on the market. If not today, you will be better in a month or in a year.

Let me conclude with an example from Outfit7. When we started the company, we only knew we wanted to build mobile apps. We had no idea what kind of apps we would be making. And when one of our founders spoke to a friend, a “seasoned” manager, this friend told him: “If you are forming a startup without an idea, you are bound to fail”.

If we have proved something, it is that ideas are cheap and teams should be every startup’s priority and focus.

Written by: Samo Login

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“I have a million dollar idea!”

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