MARTIN OMANDER: Hi.
Welcome to Root Access, a show on Google Developers Live
about startups.
My name is Martin Omander, and I'm joined here today by Don
Dodge, Googler, longtime investor, and start up
evangelist.
Don, today we're going to talk about founders who say I have
a great idea but--
so I'm sure you've heard this many times.
Founders who come and say, I have a great idea but I don't
have any money.
What do you tell founders who say that?
DON DODGE: Well, first of all they're not founders.
If they just have an idea and haven't founded a company,
then they're like the rest of us who have lots of ideas but
haven't executed.
So to be a founder, you have to take that idea
and execute on it.
You have to convince other people to join you and build a
company and move forward.
So I get those emails every day about, I have a great idea
about something.
And we're all consumers, so consumer focused companies,
everyone has an idea for a consumer or social app or a
mobile app.
Because we all have phones and we all have mobile apps and we
all have ideas for mobile apps.
But those are just ideas, and they don't become interesting
until you've thought about it further, convinced other
people to join you, convinced investors to put money in.
So ideas are just ideas, and they literally
are a dime a dozen.
MARTIN OMANDER: So another thing early founders say is, I
have a great idea but I won't tell you about it because I'm
afraid that you or somebody else might steal it.
What do you say?
DON DODGE: Yeah, I hear that too.
Less now than in the past.
But the reality is that if you don't talk about your idea,
you're not going to get advice.
You're not going to find out if the idea is
reasonable or not.
So you need to talk about the idea with early users,
potential customers, to get their feedback to see if it's
something that they're really interested in.
Quite often, we're delusional, and we think an idea is great
because we're talking to ourselves.
You need to talk to other people to see if it's really
an idea that has legs.
You need to talk to people to find your co-founders and get
them excited about the idea and willing to join you.
You need to talk to potential investors to see if there's
interest in this idea, talk to potential customers or users
to see how they would use it.
So you need to be out there talking about your idea.
The chances that someone is going to steal
your idea are minimal.
In fact, I've rarely ever seen that happen.
More often the case is that people want to offer advice
and offer help.
Very few people or very few companies are going to drop
what they're doing to steal your idea.
That almost never happens.
MARTIN OMANDER: Right.
The couple of times I've seen one company take on the
business model of another, it's they're going after an
established business.
Not really a very early stage start up.
DON DODGE: That's right.
And big companies have 100 other priorities, and they
have established products and road maps, and they have a
hundred things that they want to do on that
product road map.
They are likely not interested in implementing an idea that's
not already in their road map, so highly unlikely.
MARTIN OMANDER: Right.
OK, very good.
So let's dig into that a little bit because a lot of
founders have great ideas but they don't want to hire a
bunch of developers and spend a lot of money and time
validating the idea.
You spoke some about how can they validate the idea early
on, soon, and with minimal invest?
DON DODGE: Yeah, well, that's the beauty of today.
You can start a company for almost no money.
Because if you can code, if you can build, then you can
start a company.
Validation comes in many forms.
So if you were to take your idea to some potential
co-founders and they're willing to drop what they're
doing and come join you to build this product, that's
validation that this is an idea that has legs.
If you're able to talk to advisors who have industry
knowledge, and they know the industry and they agree, this
is an interesting idea, and they're willing to help you as
an advisor, that's validation.
If you talk to users and early potential customers, they'll
give you advice and help improve the idea, that's
validation that it's something good.
And then, early investors.
Investors are looking for that validation.
They're looking to see that there are other people who
will quit their jobs to come do what you're talking about.
They're looking for advisers as validation, that yes, they
have domain experience, they understand this and they're
willing to get involved.
Early use cases from customers or users, all of those things
create validation in the minds of investors so that they're
willing to put their money in.
MARTIN OMANDER: Because they won't spend as much time as
the investor or the co-founder understanding the idea, so it
helps them to see that the adviser or the co-founder
thinks it's a good idea.
DON DODGE: Exactly.
So investors are looking for validation from
all of those areas.
And if it's missing, if it's too early, and you don't have
co-founders, or you don't have early users, or you don't have
advisers, then the investor is going to be a little nervous.
Unless they know you very, very well, they're not going
to write a check.
Or unless they know this business and have had
experience in it, they're not going to write a check.
So they're looking for that validate.
MARTIN OMANDER: So get away from your desk, get out there,
sounds like the way to do it.
DON DODGE: Absolutely.
MARTIN OMANDER: All right.
Thank you, Don.
That's all for today.
If you have comments or questions, please leave them
under the YouTube video in the comments, and we'll try to get
back to them in future episodes.
Thanks for joining us and see you at the
same time next week.
Bye.