What it takes to come up with a good idea vs. what it takes to execute it well

To turn an idea into a successful business:

1. Solve a problem that your future customers find so important/annoying they will gladly pay for your solution. If you’re improving upon an existing solution, it has to be significantly better than what people are used to.

2. Understand who your customers are and figure out if they will actually pay for your solution. Try selling it to them before you spend a part of your life developing it.

3. Unless you can dedicate the next few years of your life to the idea, don’t do it. Just because it’s a good idea, and you came up with it, doesn’t mean you have to be the one that brings it to life.

4. Unless you have a burning passion for working on your solution, you will need superhuman perseverance. Ideally, have both.

5. If you aren’t good at selling, you better have people who are. If your spending exceeds your income, you are going downhill, no matter which way you look at it.

6. Don’t go against human nature. Build the idea so that human nature plays into it. A customer should experience no discomfort/annoyance using your solution (other than paying for it). Your work is not done until this is true.