moneyFYI
Financial Freedom Is Merely Organized Common Sense
Good Ideas Only Have Value When Implemented
If you go to the good ideas store, you will find them at the regular price of $1.39 a dozen. The spring sale can sometimes see them below $1.00.
Many people think good ideas are exceptionally valuable, and were it not for the price of a worldwide patent, they would patent them and reap vast rewards. The world does not work like that. Not even close.
“People who pride themselves on having ideas often fail to understand that only after ideas have been filtered through real-world experience do we know whether they are right or wrong. Most turn out to be wrong.”
Thomas Sowell
Thus, the price. Most are wrong. If good ideas come with guarantees, they would be immensely more expensive.
The Facebook case
You might remember the case brought by the Winklevoss twins claiming Mark Zuckerberg had purloined their terrific idea and turned it into Facebook. While there was little dispute that the idea was theirs, the judge awarded them a nearly insignificant amount because he decided the implementation was where the value lived.
That is the general situation. The doing is where the money is. The team building, the strategic direction, the invention of skills as well as product, the marketing, the financing.
In general
If you examine business start-ups, you’ll find most fail. There is a good side to that. Most fail quickly. The lingering deaths are far more costly.
People are delusional about how easy it is to run a business. Any business. Because you make killer hamburgers on your barbecue says nothing about your ability to operate a restaurant. Buying a used cargo van is not the key to being a plumbing contractor.
Even people with some skill make mistakes on this point. I had a senior executive with a multinational company, who I knew casually from the golf club, approach me about starting a business. His reason was simple. He had noticed that many of the top golfers at the club owned their own businesses.
That is not a good enough reason.
Businesses are like children. They are all different; they all have challenges; the solutions don’t always work, yet many problems can be overcome by working harder. If hard work and solving problems you have not seen before is not your thing, a business may not be a solution.
Think about your style in terms of guitars and pianos. Entrepreneurs are like guitars. They make the note before they play it. Employees tend to like the piano model better. The note is provided, and you play it. Either style will work for a person, but someone who wants the problem and the solution to be defined before they work at it will find businesses challenging.
No good idea persists. Even Amazon has changed immeasurably. I doubt book sales generate a large share of their profits. If change is troubling, businesses will be terrifying.
As with other things, know yourself.
I build strategic, fact-based estate and income plans. The plans identify alternate and effective ways to achieve spending and estate distribution goals.
Be in touch at 705-927-4770 or by email at don.shaughnessy@gmail.com.
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