founder, team, ideaThis question is being asked and answered a lot and I am still not convinced in either way. Which one is the recipe for a successful company? Starting with a world class idea and building a team around that or starting with a world class team and finding out a great idea together?
This is a great question for many people who would like to start a startup, I think. And although I am not an expert in this field, I would like to share some insight I got from some readings and videos.
tl;dr: Idea first. Ideally you got some idea for something you really want to have or use and start working on it, maybe with a good friend or two.
Idea or team first?
Recently, Paul Graham wrote an essay called Before the Startup, which contains a part that addresses this question. And in my opinion, he is very right with what he wrote:
So if you want to start a startup one day, what should you do in college? There are only two things you need initially: an idea and cofounders. And the m.o. for getting both is the same. Which leads to our sixth and last counterintuitive point: that the way to get startup ideas is not to try to think of startup ideas.
I’ve written a whole essay on this, so I won’t repeat it all here. But the short version is that if you make a conscious effort to think of startup ideas, the ideas you come up with will not merely be bad, but bad and plausible-sounding, meaning you’ll waste a lot of time on them before realizing they’re bad.
The way to come up with good startup ideas is to take a step back. Instead of making a conscious effort to think of startup ideas, turn your mind into the type that startup ideas form in without any conscious effort. In fact, so unconsciously that you don’t even realize at first that they’re startup ideas.
This is not only possible, it’s how Apple, Yahoo, Google, and Facebook all got started. None of these companies were even meant to be companies at first. They were all just side projects. The best startups almost have to start as side projects, because great ideas tend to be such outliers that your conscious mind would reject them as ideas for companies.
(emphasis added by me)
So what he basically writes is, if you try to think of great (startup) ideas, you will not get them. This also means, that if you have a team for your company, but no idea what you could do, the chances are high that you will fail. So: Idea first.
Graham also mentioned a few quite big companies. When having a look at the history of Apple, for example, Steve Wozniak did not think of trying to sell his invention. He just built the small computer for fun.
I do not want to repeat everything, as the (or my) answer should be clear by now. If you want to have more information on this, I recommend reading the essay linked above or watch this video of Grahams presentation at Stanford university which is not only informative, but also entertaining. There are also a number of related videos on that channel that could be useful.
Starting with a world class idea and building a team around that or starting with a world class team and finding out a great idea together?
They’re both recipes for successful companies. Existence proofs:
They’re not really different strategies that you can take though. It depends on where you are now. If you already have a successful team — you start with a successful team. If all you have is an idea — you start with an idea.
The interesting question is how you get to a world class idea and a world class team?
Generally what seems to happen with successful companies is that a good idea attracts enough good people so that the idea gets changed and improved, and the team gets changed and improved, until you end up with a great idea and a great team.
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