So, I saw the Social Network yesterday and was BLOWN away.
Awesome movie and amazing story.The bulk of the minutes of the movie were spent on the controversies surrounding Facebook (and not the success of the business), and that got me thinking.
What REALLY is important?IDEA or EXECUTION?
A couple of years ago, I had presented at some marketing forum, and after I stepped down from the Podium and began mingling with the crowds, a sophisticated and mature man approached me. He rather cockily said ‘Alok, you know, I had thought of an idea like contests2win.com way before you did’. (Contests2win was my first Internet venture in India and made me who I am today).
I said ‘Wow…great…proves that good ideas always emerge many minds’.
Mr. Smart Ass retorted ‘ Yeah, and I had many more ideas about the concept than u did. It had x and y and z features and……’. He went on barking for 10 minutes.
When he ended his ejaculation, I looked at him and send ‘Dude, It was me who was on Stage, not You’. And I walked off.
Who damn cares about whose idea it was? Its all ABOUT EXECUTION.
In the Case of Facebook:- The original three ideators of the networking site may not have had even 1/100th the power of imagination that Mark Zuckerberg had that made FB – FB!
– Just by executing to their plan, Mark would have killed what has become the biggest phenomena on this planet.
These are the reasons I think EXECUTION is far more important than IDEAS:
– It only starts with an Idea. Its just the beginning.
What evolves is what makes a big business happen or vanish. Look at the case of eBay! What Pierre Omidyar imagined and started and what Meg Whitman MADE IT!
– Its all about massive hard work and burning those tyres on those roads.
I have met 4419 unique people to date (unique visiting cards indexed by me) and have begged them for business. That work is far more greater than an IDEA of Interactive Marketing and just talking about it.
– Lots of similar ideas abound.
Its that SPARK, extra benefit or even Marketing that takes it to a new orbit. Rocket Mail existed way before Hotmail came along…Only Sabeer Bhatia had the Imagination to add ‘get free mail on Hotmail’ as a slug… Now, Blackberry and Apple and everyone does it – but he DEFINED VIRAL MARKETING!
So – what’s your idea….Oops…your execution?
****