top | item 3415702

Where can I discuss about my ideas?

16 points| naf | 14 years ago

I have a lot of ideas crossing my mind lately. I need people to comment on them. I can't figure out myself whether they are useful or not. I'm too focused, one might say. Friends and family aren't an option, because they're just not interested. I don't blame them. I want honest opinions from complete strangers. Where do you discuss about your idea(s)?

18 comments

jschuur|14 years ago

Can you code? Try and build small prototypes. Many people think 'talk is cheap, ideas aren't worth much'.

Then post some progress to a blog and cross post to social media.

ChuckMcM|14 years ago

You can discuss them anywhere. However, given the simple nature of the question I am wondering if there is some missing subtext here.

One common concern I have heard when folks ask this particular question is that someone will 'steal' their idea and run with it, ruining the chances of fame and fortune.

The truth is, ideas are like offspring, they are always more attractive to the progenitor than they are to the unrelated viewer. Many times when an idea is shared in a collective, a number of people will assert that it is a 'stupid' idea, and for folks who did not originally have that idea they will read or hear those comments and believe them more strongly than your assertion that it is a good idea.

Further, an idea expression is rarely communicated as clearly as an example of an idea does. So just talking about ideas rarely gets them stolen (except perhaps in the case of movie scripts)

Ideas are by their nature unproven, which is to say their merits are a matter of opinion rather than rigor, so few people feel compelled to rip them off or otherwise attempt to develop them.

I had the pleasure of working with Bill Joy at Sun Microsystems for several years, and one of the things that struck me about him was his ability to stretch the idea box way out of shape. He proposed some truly horrible ideas, but in the discussion enabled folks to step outside their own limitations and come up with some great things. Certainly not all of Bill's ideas were horrible, but wide ranging discussions were empowering on several levels which one would not have predicted.

So if you've got some ideas that you're wondering about, talking about them with others, any others, will help you develop them. Its one of the great things enthusiast clubs are good for, robust discussions about ideas related to club activities.

Ecio78|14 years ago

What about creating some polls and using Amazon Mechanical Turk to get opinions? You can read something about this approach here: http://www.softwarebyrob.com/2009/10/29/crowdsourcing-your-p...

richardlucas|14 years ago

http://whynot.net/ is a good place to start.

My dog rental business idea was shot to pieces.. (its still a great idea)..http://goo.gl/yLNtU but it got 5000 views. years back

Yahoo Answers...

Final one, is to find the community that your idea is relevant to, post it on the forums of the web sites that serve it. .. so if you idea is relevant to people who make high temperature adhesives go to Adhesives World and look there, if you are writing about fashion accessories for Ruby on Rails developers go there, more work but more useful..

good luck

Richard Lucas

dotBen|14 years ago

You need to work out whether you want opinions from potential customers or from industry peers.

Arguably both are important when considering any startup idea.

I can't help you find the potential customers, but when it comes to peers it is important to have a strong network of industry friends, contacts and mentors. If you don't have that to bounce an idea of then you're going to come equally stuck later on down the road when you need to lean on a network for potential hires, business advice, etc.

A strong contact network you can rely on is a key part of success.

xxqs|14 years ago

why not publishing them in a personal blog and sending links in various social platforms, like HN or google+?

although with HN, lots of topics remain neglected, especially if they appear in non-US daytime

chalst|14 years ago

lots of topics remain neglected -- Breaking your idea down into two or three pieces as a series of posts to your blog and linking them from HN can overcome this, and it might help you organise your ideas better.

Postscript - Per HN noise factor: do be aware that most HN readers are not as excited about your idea as you are.

Buddy7878|14 years ago

How far have you gone in developing these ideas?

If they are in the form of a simple web page, and you've got some sort of tracking in place, then feel free to post on here, I'm sure you'll get some valuable feedback.

Oh, and I've just dropped you a quick email if you want to chat over Skype or whatever!

naf|14 years ago

They're just ideas floating around in my head. I want to make sure I'm not reinventing the weel.

davidw|14 years ago

You could stop by #startups on irc.freenode.net. Discussion is a lot less 'serious' than here though, at times.

Kaizyn|14 years ago

There aren't that many outlets. Most of my discussions of the type you're describing have been with co-workers. This would make for a useful online community.

willmacdonald|14 years ago

Try the Startup Guild

http://startupguild.net/

jiggity|14 years ago

Hi Naf,

I love thinking through new ideas and I would be glad to help.

You can see some parts of the framework I use to evaluate ideas in my past comments.

Shoot me an email if you think I can help.

cheers,

jiggity

petervandijck|14 years ago

Post them here.