If you’re an entrepreneur or business person who has had to try out several ideas before finding “the one”.
Then you’ve probably experienced several moments where you’re so cautious of who you share your ideas with to the extent you begin or end conversations by making the person swear with their hands and legs raised that they won’t mention it to someone else lest they steal it, (sigh*). You even make sure you warn the person you’ve told not to steal it themselves (laughs)
Then you head home praying and crossing your fingers that they’ll actually stick to their word. (Laughs*)
So much caution is really placed on the so called “ideas thieves” with honors in “idea steal-age” who are assumed to sit around with “huge sums of money” waiting for the right moment to pounce on your idea even before you smell the tiles of your company, (pun*).
See, before some entrepreneurs finally establish “their dream” start up/ business they actually live to protect their ideas .you can’t blame them for it because they are actually really creative they could bag “best idea creator” awards consecutively for a decade.
You’re probably thinking this sounds like me or like that guy Greg, (wink*)
But with time experience teaches you that:
Your Idea has no value unless it becomes a product, that moment you sigh heavily and say “finally, I did it, (as you stare at your product,) now that’s the moment you live for.
So until then…. your idea is just a figment of you imagination .Actually if you do research most ideas are improvements of existing ideas.It’s the same way movies are replicated .in one there’s a rich guy who loves poor girl in another rich girl is in love with the dad’s employee .in another poor guy falls for rich girl probably whose visually impaired, and the cycle continues.
So what happens if someone with “honors in idea steal-age” steals*your idea before you can even get that branded glass door? OK, here’s something practical, think of an existing startup ororganization you’ve always admired, sit down and come up with a whole strategy of coming up with something close to that. Right, The thought of even taking that pen is just exhausting what about when you factor in the skill, time and effort you have to put in.You’re better off coming up with your own idea, in the end you realize “idea steal-age” is quite rare.
But, you can actually wake up one day and find an advertisement of something similar to the idea you had or you have running on TV.
It happened to me once , the day I woke to find an advert of OLX Kenya five months after I had given up on a very similar idea in e-marketing I’d named I-mall . I was traumatized, i could not understand how the world could be so cruel to an 18 year old. Sigh. Let me just point out that I never knew anyone from OLX . So they didn’t steal it. This just clarifies that there are 1000’s of you with the same idea, but probably different execution methods.The one I used for I-mall wasn’t making any progress plus my impatience of expecting results in the form of millions of profits in a year was just on another level.
A girl has got to dream right?
So as you hold onto that idea like it’s the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow , in a week’s time someone else will be doing the same exact thing as you. And if they have the needed money to invest in implementation well…
The only thing you can do is buy yourself a cup of coffee,tea ,milk or whatever drink and have a conversation with yourself on keeping calm and embracing your own pace. Afterwards you may soon find out what’s most important to you. Most people run for advertisements that cost close to a million or even less but leaves their pockets empty. So instead of running to advertising because you want to be noticed first, spare your pennies and do some market research to find out more about your target audience.You could also map out investors or better yet, work on improving your product.The point is there are 100 more things to worry about after the idea becomes a product. From product development , market research, business expertise, establishing a team that believes in your vision, advertising, investors, it is all hard work that makes an idea into a product a reality.
You’re still worried about “idea steal-age”??No? Yes? then it could do you some good if you learnt something from Coke &Pepsi ,Timex&Rolex, Google, Yahoo and many other successful corporations. you Remember not to follow the competition but mark your place against them.
If anyone is in need of an idea strategist, you know who to call (Is there such a job?)
Article written by Capital Campus Contributor – Evon Mercy Vala
