If execution is all that matters your idea isn't good enough.
I don't care how many times people keep claiming that execution is all that matters, it's still wrong or it becomes tautological, like saying. The key to success is being successful.
Good ideas are often shitty ideas until they are good. What makes them good isn't just execution but timing, luck and so many other factors.
Failing to understand that is a bigger problem than the few people left who think the idea is everything.
I always understood it to mean that a good idea doesn’t sell unless you execute well on it, and also that an idea doesn’t need to be unique, it just needs to be executed better than the competitors.
But that is also not always the case. If you are first to market you don't need to be executing better than the competitors since they don't necessarily exist.
It's way more complex and subtle than the "execution is all that matters" or the "my idea is secured in a password protected powerpoint" camp.
I have helped over a 100 startups and at least in my experience, it's not more correct to say execution is all that matters than to say ideas are all that matter.
Plenty of well-executed ideas don't ever go anywhere because the ideas were wrong, to begin with.
In the context of this otherwise fine list by Patrick this is just particularly problematic because it's wrong in a non-obvious way but sounds right.
> Plenty of well-executed ideas don't ever go anywhere because the ideas were wrong, to begin with.
Or, to put it another way, the founders made an MVP from their initial (for argument's sake, poor) idea, and then couldn't find product-market fit before running out of (bootstrapped or VC-funded) runway. Your argument, then, is that some ideas and MVPs make it impossible to find product-market fit, no matter who the founders / executive team are, because there is no market or whatever other reason beyond the startup's control.
And you would be correct if it wasn't possible for startups to pivot. But they do, sometimes multiple times, and sometimes successfully. Part of the reason why execution is everything is because good executives can take what the startup has learned about its product and its market, understand that the startup's current trajectory leads to bankruptcy, and make the necessary pivot which presents better odds at viability.
If execution is all that matters your idea isn't good enough.
I don't care how many times people keep claiming that execution is all that matters, it's still wrong or it becomes tautological, like saying. The key to success is being successful.
Good ideas are often shitty ideas until they are good. What makes them good isn't just execution but timing, luck and so many other factors.
Failing to understand that is a bigger problem than the few people left who think the idea is everything.