5 Reasons why a new unrealized idea is worth nothing

I bet you know a friend with a startup idea in mind. Startup ideas live with us, they intrude in our minds and if we let them grow, they can become obsessions, our next big hit. We may assume it is the product of our creativity or intelligence and that as such, there are no reasons to devalue it. A startup idea is a hope to hang on to, and since we're not living with it being realized, we end up buying it at a high price. Idea "owners" buy it when its so expensive, that refuse to communicate it to others, who may buy it at a better price, seeing as more tangible and doable.

We get sold on our idea. This is a necessary, yet insufficient condition in order for it to become valuable. Here's why a non prototyped idea is worth nothing.

1. There's just so much to do!

This is especially the case if your friend(s) have never tried entrepreneuring. Every junior entrepreneur knows an idea is 1% of the whole startup. There's so much work in the backstage of a startup (value chain, alliances, workforce talent acquisition, etc...) and in the forefront (marketing, selling, CRM, etc... ), as well as in the business model definition, that an idea is little more than what's needed to start.

2. Startup ideas are frequently chameleons by requirement

Even if today you're completely sure your present business model will remain the same, even if you're having success with your current idea and you're, indeed, growing the numbers, even in that case, startup ideas should change over time, adapting themselves to a more profitable version. Every company has done this, ask Instagram, ask Groupon, Facebook or Twitter, to mention a few.

How can we give value to an idea if it's surely not being exactly the same at the end, if it ever contributes to any success?

3. We all have ideas

This is a offer/demand argument. If ideas could be sold and bought with money, we would all be quite rich.

4. There is nothing really known about its value

Ideas that are not tested in the market have no recognized value. Very few ideas have any recognized value before achieving product-market fit, a quite advanced stage, compared to that in which an idea is born.

5. Unrealized doesn't mean unthought, there are really no new ideas

This reason is for those who argue their idea is so fantastic and original, that everybody should be charged for knowing such a magnificent an genuine creation. 

Any unrealized idea is mistakenly thought to be "new". Any "new" fantastic idea might have been in the brain of at least hundreds of thousands of human beings. The reason why FourSquare is so valuable is not because it's an original idea no one thought before, you've got to move!

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