Simon Willison's Weblog: ideas

Quoting Sam Altman

2020-05-28T21:36:03+00:00

Any time you can think of something that is possible this year and wasn’t possible last year, you should pay attention. You may have the seed of a great startup idea. This is especially true if next year will be too late.

— Sam Altman

Tags: ideas, startups, sam-altman

Quoting Howard H. Aiken

2019-03-17T15:15:57+00:00

Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats.

— Howard H. Aiken

Tags: ideas

Quoting David Gluckman

2017-10-09T13:38:45+00:00

I have come to the conclusion that the real heroes of ideas are not the people who have them – they are the people who buy them

— David Gluckman

Tags: ideas

I'm a developer, I've an idea, how to look for funding?

2013-11-20T15:30:00+00:00

My answer to I'm a developer, I've an idea, how to look for funding? on Quora

If you only need $10,000-$15,000 you should be looking at funding it yourself - professional investors very rarely get involved for that size of raise, and you probably wouldn't want them to - giving up equity in exchange for so little money is usually a bad idea.

The exception is startup accelerators, which are often set up for exactly this kind of investment. Y Combinator, Techstars and so on would be worth considering.

Tags: entrepreneurship, funding, ideas, startups, quora, ios

What's an idea worth?

2013-07-29T14:02:00+00:00

My answer to What's an idea worth? on Quora

I like Derek Siver's model proposed here: http://sivers.org/multiply

To make a business, you need to multiply an idea by its execution. A really great idea is worth $20.

No execution is worth $1. So if your idea is truly great it's worth 20 x 1 = $20.

If you can pull off just a good execution ($100,000) then congratulations, you have a combination worth $2,000,000.

Tags: business, entrepreneurship, funding, ideas, startups, technology, quora

What are the underlying, unspoken values of TED?

2010-12-07T16:50:00+00:00

My answer to What are the underlying, unspoken values of TED? on Quora

Not unspoken, but the ten commandments they send out to their speakers are pretty interesting: http://www.ted.com/pages/360

Tags: design, ideas, technology, quora, ted

Quoting Edd Dumbill

2007-09-04T00:21:38+00:00

Ideas rot if you don't do something with them. I used to try to hoard them, but they rotted. Now I just blog them or tell people about them. Sometimes they still rot, but sometimes someone finds them useful in one way or another.

— Edd Dumbill

Tags: blogging, cory-doctorow, edddumbill, ideas

Quoting Bogtha

2007-07-13T07:26:22+00:00

An OpenID provider should catalogue the sites that a user logs into and automatically construct a homepage for them. That way, not only do the users have the convenience of having their favourite websites automatically bookmarked and readily available, but (with a little help from the consumers), they don't have to log into the individual sites at all.

— Bogtha

Tags: ideas, openid, reddit