Your Greatest Idea is Worth $0

Yesterday while driving, I rounded a corner only to lay eyes on a stunning Benz. She was a wide-bodied beauty, jet-black with red accents and swooping lines that made her appear to glide over the road. Reluctantly, I tore my eyes away only to spy another black car with red highlights parked near the sidewalk. Now both cars were black and red, but one was not like the other. The second car looked like it had seen struggle, like it was a recent escapee from the local junkyard. The second car was a beater.

When we have ideas in our heads, we often obsess over perfecting them because of how highly we value them, or our fear that someone else might copy them if we don't get them just right. Truth is, none of that matters, because...

Nobody can execute like you. For better or for worse.

Ask a group of kids to draw a house. Some will draw the classic square base with a triangle on top and call it a day. Others will attempt a photorealistic depiction of a mansion. It doesn't matter if someone else tries to copy your idea once you publish it, because nobody can do it the way you can. So just put it out there. But there's a bigger issue than plagiarism.

You don't know what the idea is worth until you release it.

It's easy to think that our best ideas are world changers. Truth is, there's no way for us to know for sure. It's silly to spend ages trying to perfect an idea when we don't know if the market will even care about it. Good enough is good enough. Put it out there and let the feedback tell you whether it's worth perfecting. The value of an idea, no matter how revolutionary, is $0. So set your ideas free and let the market decide if they're a Benz or a beater.