Ideas are Cheap, Implementations Cost

Software costs both time and money to write and create. It’s not some magic fairy dust that you wave a wand and earn a butt ton of money. You just wake up with an idea in the morning and earn a billion dollars by nightfall. No. An idea sometimes serves as a start point but an idea alone won’t put food on the dinner table tonight.

A friend of mine tells the story of their original idea to customise a car to add a stereo system, people love music so why not add it to a car to enhance the driving experience. An idea that we all live with today, thanks to my friend. Actually no, he never implemented the idea. Instead he thought and spoke about it a lot but never advanced to the implementation stage. Now in hindsight he swears even today if he went through with the idea and built it then he would be a millionaire.

I meet many people who claim to possess fantastic ideas, with promises that if I just created their software app idea then I would be printing money. One person even said “hey I got this idea, but don’t go make it, it’s my idea”… well if it’s secret don’t tell me!

Ideas cost nothing, the moment one thinks it, the idea exists. Unfortunately with implementations they chew up countless hours or if not years of time. Not just time but money. Let’s do an example together to illustrate my point.

The Idea: I have an idea to write an app that allows me to live stream a video of me teaching and allows people to leave me tips.

Alright, stay with me now, the idea exists, right? Of course it does, I said it, I thought it, now it exists. Now the moment of truth, to implement it. Hmmm how the heck do I do that. Well, I will start with a base MVP, enough features to start a trail with a few people. Hmmm, but how do I fund the project? How do I know it will make money? How will bla bla bla bla. You get it. End of post, ideas vs implementations, the difference separates those that “say” and those that “do”.