Ideas are just a tiny multiplier
by Anjali Gupta
I happened to come across this relevant post on on the value of business ideas.
Quote for the day: The most brilliant idea, with no execution, is worth $20.
“Ideas are worth nothing unless executed. They are just a multiplier. Execution is worth millions.
Explanation:
AWFUL IDEA = -1
WEAK IDEA = 1
SO-SO IDEA = 5
GOOD IDEA = 10
GREAT IDEA = 15
BRILLIANT IDEA = 20
NO EXECUTION = $1
WEAK EXECUTION = $1000
SO-SO- EXECUTION = $10,000
GOOD EXECUTION = $100,000
GREAT EXECUTION = $1,000,000
BRILLIANT EXECUTION = $10,000,000
To make a business, you need to multiply the two.
The most brilliant idea, with no execution, is worth $20.
The most brilliant idea takes great execution to be worth $20,000,000.
That’s why I don’t want to hear people’s ideas. I’m not interested until I see their execution.”
tinker on 
This post quantifies the importance of execution.
Thanks.
That’s very true. There are plenty of conspicuous examples to site – WalMart wasn’t the first one to exploit the idea of retailing; they excelled because of outstanding execution, Google wasn’t the first to search web, or even Microsoft wasn’t the first one to conceive and build a operation system. They all succeeded because of unparalleled execution capabilities.
I have recently written about patents (idea protection concept), should take a look – Are software patents evil?
I beg to disagree. In fact, I would say the most brilliant execution is worth $20. If today, you have a mobile phone neatly tucked away in your shirt pocket, it is all thanks to modelling where thousands of models are created and rejected before creating any moulds.
An idea is like a model we play around with before execution. If we have an IQ above 100, we would know what idea is worth trying or not worth trying. For the former, we would then proceed to do a pilot. The point I am trying to make is that How we much we can maximize idea creation and how much we can minimize needless execution determines how precious we are to the world we inhabit especially given all the resources we have with us today.
Amol, I agree with the spirit of your comment. I think the original author’s intention was to talk about simple ideas that many people claim credit for post execution – the creative brainstorming, the iteration process, the re-modeling and fine tuning of the idea till it becomes easy to grasp and adopt are all counted as a part of execution. In fact those hours of playing around with an half-baked idea in your mind are the most crucial ones for justifying further effort.
Hi Anjali,
Sorry if I got a bit worked up about the issue. To my mind, the problem goes a bit deeper. Let us say Person A comes up with an average idea and Person B provides good execution. One may ask why did Person B provide good execution to an average idea. The answer may be that Person A was footing the bill. Similarly let us say Person C comes up with a good idea and Person D provides average execution. Again one may ask why did Person C agree to average execution. The answer may be that Person D was footing the bill. Here is where the problem goes deeper. We face the curse of synchronicity i.e politics would use all effects of an event. The A-B case or the C-D case do not exist in isolation. They become statistics. This means A-B was allowed to dilute the reputation of executions and C-D was allowed to dilute the reputation of ideas. This is the weakness of human thinking, we love statistics even if these mess up our thinking.
Thanks Amol. That’s a different angle and yes statistics can be very misleading when the entire context is not described. We love statistics because it helps us prove something better, or so we/others think. Every statistic is just as good/bad as the last person who proved it right/wrong. I’m glad you pointed it out.
I get the feeling that you are not really interested in this issue. Like a good admin, you handled a few comments and now you want out. Not that all that I said made much sense in the first place.
Amol,
Perhaps you could try reiterating your point. I think I missed it too. Statistics are just history and a guideline. They don’t tell you the whole story.
I think betting on execution being the larger multiplier is more gut than statistics.
– Santosh
plagiarists think this way, because they can’t come up with original ideas.