That "Big Idea" and "the one that got away"?

[-God-]

This thread was inspired by Russ86's post here which reminded me to start my own as it's slightly different.

I meant to start this thread a few weeks ago, but ran out of time and failed to use the forum for a few weeks.

What I wondered was, when do you decide to follow through on an big idea and when do you decide to bin it? Do you even do anything about them? (When I say big I mean colossal. I mean game changers. Companies that could seemingly become household names, that sort of thing.)

We've all met people who came up with eBay/Facebook/Dyson/iPod/Windows, etc., etc. But as marketers we must all have some ball achingly good ideas almost daily. I know I like to think I do, but as most remain on text files on my computer, they either become someone else's business or remain in depths of my computer amounting to nothing.

Sometimes this is because the idea is so huge, I can't begin to contemplate the undertaking and sometimes I know so little about the industry/market, I lack confidence and am also unprepared to discuss it openly with someone how would know more.

Do other people struggle with this?


tl;dr
How do you deal with you big ideas? Bin them or build them?

 

[1337hovie]

An idea not coupled by action, will never get bigger than the brain cells it occupies. -fortune cookie

 

[zimok]

Stick to what you can feasibly do with the resources available to you, or die a dreamer.

 

[Hammi]

Stick to what you can feasibly do with the resources available to you, or die a dreamer.

This took me way longer to learn than it should have.

 

[nvanprooyen]

This one: WishBin - Online Gift Registry & Universal Wishlist

What's there isn't really representative of the vision. I'm not even sure if it even works anymore, hasn't been touched in years. Social shopping tools was really kind of the core idea / mission. We were really early in that space, no one was doing anything like it at the time (about a year before Kaboodle who was acquired by Hearst Publishing for like $32M), got a little traction and shit just kind of fell apart. Honestly, in our development roadmap that we had probably 7 years ago...there is still stuff in there that no one has done to date that could be game changing. There are a lot of reasons it didn't work out. I'll tell you this, I took away a LOT of great lessons from that little experience. Next time I go for a home run, you can bet your ass I'm knocking that fucker out of the park.

 

[nvanprooyen]

Here's my domain fail. In 1996 I owned the domain netoptix.com before they were even a company. I just thought it sounded like a decent name for a fiber optics company so I bought it. Then a company shows up on the radar, called NetOptix. There is nothing there now because they got acquired for $2B:

Corning, Inc. to purchase the NetOptix Corp. for 137.74 times revenue | Science & Technology > Physics from AllBusiness.com

Somehow, I let the registration slip in like 1998ish. Back in the boom days, I'm sure I could have cashed in on that one big time.

 

[1337hovie]

i'd much rather die a dreamer, then settle for anything.

 

[cardine]

I think about this all the time.

Right now I just want to position myself financially so that I can seriously go for one of these 'game changing' ideas. For me affiliate marketing is a stepping stone into something like this.

 

[jpet1010]

Here's my domain fail. In 1996 I owned the domain netoptix.com before they were even a company. I just thought it sounded like a decent name for a fiber optics company so I bought it. Then a company shows up on the radar, called NetOptix. There is nothing there now because they got acquired for $2B:

Corning, Inc. to purchase the NetOptix Corp. for 137.74 times revenue | Science & Technology > Physics from AllBusiness.com

Somehow, I let the registration slip in like 1998ish. Back in the boom days, I'm sure I could have cashed in on that one big time.

Out of curiosity, did you know about the company when the reg expired? That would have been epic to own that at the time they were acquired, lol.

 

[nvanprooyen]

No...I didn't. It was complete coincidence. I happened to stumble on their stock one day trading at like 130 a share like 6 months after the domain had already expired . To make matters worse, I was in the Air Force at the time so pretty broke. Selling a domain name for a $XXX K back then woulda been pretty damn sweet. Hell, it would be pretty damn sweet now.

 

[papajohn56]

Stick to what you can feasibly do with the resources available to you, or die a dreamer.

I prefer a different approach. Make the resources available to you.

 

[ebtek]

Stick to what you can feasibly do with the resources available to you, or die a dreamer.

I'm struggling with this one. It's good advice for procrastinators. But for people that dream big, they'll find the way to make the resources available to them.

"life will pay whatever you ask of it" - tony Robbins

 

[galacon]

Shapow

I think about this all the time.

Right now I just want to position myself financially so that I can seriously go for one of these 'game changing' ideas. For me affiliate marketing is a stepping stone into something like this.

This is so fucking win^^^

That's the way to be, mate. Position yourself for success, and always remember luck is useless if you can't capitalize on it. Fuck your fancy cars, cool toys, etc. Be Ready.

I'm waiting for round two of the crash so I can ride that fucker down and then back up just like I did this current economic cluster fuck.

Cash Is King.

EDIT: I'm not saying don't enjoy what you earn- just build a pile and be ready to jump on a great opp and roll. Save and put some of the cash aside compounding long term, too- Especially you younger guys- you have an insane advantage...It's called TIME.