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Ask HN: How can I quit talking myself out of my own ideas?
81 points by Skywing on Jan 7, 2011 | hide | past | favorite | 56 comments
I'm sure this is common amongst us developers with ideas. I come up with new ideas for websites all the time. Most of the time I will have 2-3 ideas a week. I will usually invest several hours into each idea. If I know enough to jump right into code, I will. Otherwise I start by researching for the idea.

Most of my ideas I am initially excited about. If I'm lucky then I may even be genuinely positive that the idea is "going to work". But, just like clockwork, I eventually begin to doubt the idea and usually end up dropping it. This usually occurs the day or so after the inception of the idea.

Usually, my reasoning for dropping an idea is that it seems so useless and minor in the grand scheme of things. I try to picture people using the product and it actually making their life better in some way. This is obviously not an easy thing to do.

I think that over the years I've trained myself to be my own worst critic. I'll let myself get engulfed in an idea right away, but then I always take a step back and criticize the unpolished idea to the point where I convince myself that it's useless.

What are some things that help you all remain optimistic and excited about an idea?




You can't talk yourself out of talking yourself out of ideas. What's happening is that your mind is telling you that your overall approach is wrong. You're thinking of ideas in a bottom-up, depth-first manner. You think of a product, and then your mind races through a chain of obvious conclusions of what the product and its features should look like. Then a few hours later your mind rejects it as crap. That's probably because it is crap, since in practice it's not how great products get designed.

Instead, try to think of it in a top-down, breadth-first manner. Pick a market you care about, and the best product in that market. Then think for a week how you could improve that product by an order of magnitude. List ideas. Throw them out. List more. When we're talking about disruptive improvement, thinking about it in terms of "orders of magnitude" is hard, so try to think about it in terms of what huge, meaningful thing the users could do that they can't do now. Design a new product that has a fundamental reason to exist (doing the same thing differently is not a reason).

This way, instead of trusting in your idea, you'll have to put trust into the fact that you can design a great product. I found this to be much easier - in this case all you have to do, is do your best. It's hard for anyone to do anything more than that.


tl;dr: Don't work on an "idea," design a "product."


This is how it worked for a friend of mine.

1. Friend: "I have an idea,...., but i'm not sure if it's great or crap. " 2: Me: "Don't worry it IS crap." 3. Friend: "Screw you, i'm gonna build it and show your ass that it's not."

He made that app, and sold it to 4 people. It was more of an (offline) app, so couldn't link it here.


Not that long, great comment above, read it!


There's not really any trick to it. You just pick one and build it anyways. At some point you will think it's a waste of time and useless. Just keep going, the hardest part is pretending to be jazzed about it when discussing it with others, but it's essential that you keep pretending it's awesome until you are excited about it again (or it's done, whatever comes first).

I think the key problem statement in your post is "I will usually invest several hours into each idea". You really need to put in several hundred hours before you can tell if something is worth it or not. The "excited" phase is really just a tiny fleeting moment in a project's lifespan.

In reality, projects are rarely clear flops or wild successes. People love describing them that way because it makes a great story, but it's a myth.


I actually think having ideas and talking yourself out of them, as you describe, is completely healthy.

The ideas that keep coming back to you and have to be repeatedly beaten away are the ones that might be worth taking a chance on. Pay closer to attention to the ones that keep coming back.


Yes. Coming up with bad ideas is easy. It's important to have a good filter. In general, I think creative people begin many more projects than they finish, and often it's only once you get into the project a little that you can tell it's not really that great.

That said, in your case it might be worth taking one of your ideas through to completion just to have the experience of doing that.


I completely agree.

On the other hand, I think it's also important to actually keep MAKING things, even if the ideas aren't yet amazing. It'll give you the knowledge and the self-confidence to tackle the really good ideas more decisively when the time comes.

Choosing small projects that can be finished before you get too bored or distracted can be a good way to do it.


Agreed. I spent years thinking of ideas and dropped many of them because I felt they weren't good enough. When one hits that is good enough, don't stop, just do it.


Real users. Nothing will be more motivating than having real people use and love your stuff. Build something you're not completely embarrassed of and start showing it to people and asking them to try it out. If one of them picks up, you won't need to talk yourself out of anything. You'll be too busy fixing bugs, adding features and improving the overall experience.


It is good to fail fast, but you need to prototype or start implementation before you do. There will always be a side that doubts but the entrepreneur in you needs to believe, but also be realistic.

I am always surprised what sells, so you don't really know if an idea is good until you get it out in the market. Your intuition is good to go by but your intuition may also be completely wrong about what might work as well as what might not. Only the customer/market gives you the real answer.

Also don't just do an idea because you think it will work, do one that solves a problem that you are interested in. This will retain your interest and fuel some belief.

It looks like you are bailing at the 'crisis of meaning' http://i.imgur.com/DEOmi.jpg . Sometimes this is correct, other times a friend or community can help you through it. The quicker you can get to market to test the better, all other input is just opinion.


My process is probably a little different than most, but the first thing I do when I have an idea is jump into photoshop and make a logo. Doesn't matter if it sucks, if I plan on changing it 500 times, if the product name will change, whatever. Then I have something solid I can look at that defines that idea.

Next step is I start making mockups. Lots of em. I don't write one line of code until I have a mockup that I am excited about. Many times I have started mocking up an idea only to determine during the mockup process that it would be a BITCH to code, or the idea won't execute like I thought, etc..


I know EXACTLY what you are talking about. I must have started and half assed roughly a dozen projects, starting and flaking out on all of them, before I said "you know what, fuck this". Went to the store, grabbed a 12 pack of redbull. Rewrote and finished two of the projects from scratch over the course of a weekend.

Were they great projects? No. Are they going to make thousands of peoples lives better? Probably not. Did I learn a lot and improve a variety of skills, making me better prepared for bigger projects? Absolutely


So you would like us to talk you out of -- talking yourself out of ideas?

I found with myself that I can over-think things. Remember that action comes first, motivation second.

Instead of all this imagining of how users might show up and how they might use your app, and how you might be able to scale or grow -- stop doing all that.

Think less. Do more.

It's better to do one thing that's completely wrong -- and finish it -- than it is to have a hundred great ideas that never go anywhere. Don't be a spectator in your own life. (Which reminds me I need to get back to work!)


Skywing, There's a quote in one of the Assassin series books by Robin Hobb that's very apt.

There is no losing. You keep fighting until you win.

In a way what you're giving up on is not an idea. You're giving in to your fear of what it might mean if you don't succeed with the idea.

And it's ironic - because the only way you could fail is if you give up.

*

My recommendation would be to make a list of 100 ideas you've had, then give it a week to add on as many ideas as you like.

Then identify the 10-20 ideas that fall in the intersection of your natural abilities and passions. Then pick 2 and start working on both of those with a stated amount per day and with no leeway for changes until end of 2011.

So you commit to 3 hours a day on these 2 ideas - every single day. No matter what happens.

*

Also your devotion should be to the product you're making and to the execution of the idea. Once you've decided on the 2 ideas, then it's not your job to visualize failure. It's to execute and to visualize only success.

*

At some level you're scared of failure and you just have to grow some balls and take a 100% shot. If you have a son down the line, or already have one. What would you want him to think of his father as -

Someone who worried about what users might say about his work and quite without releasing anything.

OR

Someone who made something magnificent - who fucking cares whether anyone else sees the magnificence or not. It's you making it for yourself, as an artist. If you're happy with what you make then nothing else matters.


I do something even worse: I often take my ideas all the way to a finished implementation, and then fail to launch them. My only advice, to both of us, is "stop doing that" ;)


Two checkpoints I've used in the past:

1. If an idea sounds promising, I try to forget about it for a while (say a month) and if it's still a good idea after the wait, then I go for it.

Usually this means that I really have that problem and it needs fixing. So I build it.

If not, I've only lost a few brain cells. No harm done.

2. I launch, and if it works and gets people excited, then I'm really onto something.

If not, shut it down.

Note that these checkpoints allow you to back track or drop the idea. No need to keep flogging a dead horse.


Pro-tip I learned from Peter Thiel's 20 under 20 application:

To avoid the wait, try and answer the question "How are you going to change the world" on paper. Try and make it at least a page. If everything you come up with sounds like a sham, it's probably not that good of an idea.


I would like to share one quite from Gandhi: Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.

People usually don't know what is a good idea / bad idea. Otherwise killer products can be made from market survey, but this is usually not the case.

I second the comment from switch. Also even you just got one user, you are still doing something for good. Start it small, just spend a week or so build a prototype and release it.


You can also pick an idea that you yourself would use ("scratching your own itch"). This removes the uncertainty of "will other people use it", and give you motivation at least until you get a demo/MVP done, to show others. It can help to start with a problem to solve, rather than an idea (that might not address a problem).

All-or-nothing thinking can lead to those dramatic swings, from excitement to uselessness. Instead of asking if it will be great or terrible, a solution is ask if the idea has some value.

Obviously, a bit of trust/optimism/faith is required. If that sounds too... religious... consider that a true scientist will do the experiment, instead of going by what he supposes. "Don't think, try". And Feynman: nature's imagination is greater than your imagination. Do the experiment, just to find out the reality. This helps to remove your ego, that can feel hurt by a failed idea... the ego protects itself by never testing the idea.


First, start talking to people and showing them your concepts. See Customer Development and start shaping your idea around what people really want and will use. Second, remember that the initial idea you start with will not be the final product. It almost never is. Iterate, improve and continue to develop that seed of an idea or product based on input from the first point I mentioned. Also, good ideas persist in your mind longer. If the same idea keeps coming back to you then start there and push hard on developing it further. Chances are someone else is also working on this idea so chances are you'll find a partner working on something similar and might end up working together. Having a co-founder helps with bouncing ideas back and forth and keeping optimistic when times look bleak.


I would run a blog with my real name and publish all the ideas I come up with.

I have two reasons for that:

1.) Experimentally, I observed that stating your brilliant idea on paper at the moment the idea starts to bug and distract you wears off the excitement and helps to get back to and concentrate on your real work after 1-2 hours of this distraction.

2.) Within several years, some projects along the lines of your published ideas would succeed (just statistically, most likely independently of your blog). You would have a nice public record of coming up with idea or maybe sometimes a reference.

3.) Chances are, someone else would take over your job of being your "worst critique" for the ideas.

( Apparently, this is more or less what Scott Adams does in his blog: http://www.dilbert.com/blog/ )


Don't worry about it. I've been through this countless times as I'm sure all creative people have. It's depressing, but the other side of the coin is that this is the thing that gives you confidence in the right ideas. The trick is to keep doing what you're doing and wait for the time when an idea comes along in which you can't identify any fatal flaws and that you don't seem to be able to stop thinking about. Don't bank on having a perfect idea, all will require adjusting and lots of persistence to implement. Just like natural selection the good ones will hang around. Have patience, wait for these ones. If they have been destroyed by weeks, months or even years of critical thinking then they're the ones to lean towards.


Figure out a way to get real evidence of whether or not it will work before the decision is made purely on the basis of your internal beliefs.

Reframe your criticisms from "This is bad." to "This aspect needs improving because of the following problems: , , , ."


I've discovered that most of my ideas are usually missing one thing. I have a group of friends that also have a ton of ideas, and I bounce all of my ideas off of them. Most of the time we agree that something is simply missing, and we can't figure it out. Sometimes though, someone will say something that makes the project an obvious green light, and that's when I go for it.

For me, this final idea is usually the difference between "this project is going to be awesome" and "this project is going to be awesome and I know exactly how I'm going to get people to use it."


It took me a while to gain enough confidence to start thinking, "well I was ecstatic about this idea yesterday, so there must be something good here".

Now I try to remember specifically what excited me. Not as a bullet point, but as a vision. What was the cool task I imagined accomplishing? What was I thinking of when I felt like I had the right answer? Usually that's enough to get me back in the same state of mind.

But keep talking yourself out of ideas. That's the only way to get rid of bad ones. Just don't forget the good parts. Ideas evolve; let natural selection run its course.


I've experienced hi's and lo's whilst developing a product. The thing that keeps me optimistic and excited is the possibility that the product becomes a success in some small or big way. Why not set yourself a challenge to develop something over the coming weeks/months and submit it here for review. If anything you'll learn something along the way. You will also get so much insightful feedback from the community that will help you develop your product further maybe. Pick your best idea and get to work is my advice. Be tenacious in your endeavours.


When you research/start everything, a lot of time is wasted. Instead of trying to stay excited about any random one of them, instead write them down (so your brain doesn't have to worry about forgetting them) and then a week later, you'll have more perspective. Your brain will sort them out.

At first they're all exciting. A week later, only a few will still be exciting. Choose one of those, and then go nuts on it. (Continuing to write down the new ideas that keep coming will also help you stay focused on the one you do choose).


Talking yourself out of your own ideas is a good thing no matter the frequency, so long as you are positively deliberating all possibilities. Solve each problem with your idea one at a time. If you hit a roadblock that certainly invalidates your idea, you reformulate your idea (or ditch it).

This is essentially the lean startup methodology applied to your ideas, and in a presumably smaller scope. If you're talking yourself out of your ideas because they're bad, that's ok.


Instead of letting you talk yourself out of ideas, let others talk you out of the ideas. Thrash anything you come up with. Ask other potential users if they would use it. Ask if they would pay for it. I think you're probably wasting a lot of time jumping into the code without talking to others. Before you know it, you'll hear "You know, that's a really good idea..." You'd actually be surprised how honest friends can be; or maybe my ideas are just that bad...


The more neurotic you are, the better this advice is.


You may already be doing this, but keep a record of all the different ideas you have been coming up with. Do it in a text file or a Moleskin. Then challenge yourself to revisit them after a week. See what you can prune and improve upon. Spend time to polish it. Don't abandon it too early.

I get excited about the ideas that I keep coming back to and keep building off of. If you can stay optimistic about an idea for over a month, then you may be on to something.


Thank you for all the responses. I'm quickly seeing why the HN community is so revered. I think sometimes I just get frustrated at the idea of somebody else sitting down and hacking out a product over night, much like I do, except that they actually launch it and it goes somewhere. Not frustrated because it is them and not me, but frustrated at myself because I know I have the ability to do the same.

One of these days!


You need to find a sane partner to get started. Holding onto a dream is hard because there is nobody to fan the embers in the moments you lose hope.


A great read for this is "Avoid Cognitive Distortions (Hack 58)" in O'Reilly's "Mind Performance Hacks" book: http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596101534/

There's too much to quote here, but the basic premise is:

Learn to avoid 15 mental mistakes that distort your emotions and further distort your thinking


See this: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2079237


Maybe find a partner who can vet your ideas.


+! Definitely find a partner


Maybe you might want to change your goal from "getting the idea implemented" to "learning what you can from the project." More chance for success, and if the project continues past the previous fail points, you may have a winner.

Similar to enjoy the journey, rather than focusing on the destination.


I think it is healthy. I talk myself out of ideas every week. The best idea would definately come back to you. I had an idea in October last year, talked myself out of it and it came back to me early this year and i have already built a MVP for it.


1) Tell your friends about your idea - If they are out in public, and worth pursuing, you will be less likely to abandon them

2) Create an idea journal - The world may not be ready for some of your ideas, but in a few years, who knows.


Regarding #1, for some people, the opposite happens: because the idea is out there, executing becomes less important. So YMMV. I personally feel that one part of executing is indeed to get validation on the idea itself. By discussing it, one might get early validation from friends ("oh yeah, that's a good idea!"), which can seem good enough because it validates that you can have good ideas, that you're not crazy for finding a problem here and that you're smart for finding a solution.

As for the idea journal, worst case, in a few years you can look back at all these ideas that you had, did not execute on and that somebody did with (some) success. Happened to me just today :)


What is the problem with dropping ideas? What would you rather have happen?


I think the problem is when you drop all your ideas for over-thinking them too fast. I know exactly how the OP feels: I get an idea, start thinking about what would be needed to make it work, throw some stuff together and see that it could work, then either get satisfied that it's in the realm of the possible, or lose motivation by thinking the ratio usefulness/complexity is too low.


I think it's actually incredibly healthy to talk yourself out of ideas. If you can't convince yourself that an idea is solid, you won't be able to convince others (for long).


Read this great blog post from Vincius which aptly answers your question:

http://viniciusvacanti.com/page/2/


Think of it this way - even if you work for 6 weeks on something that turns out to be rubbish, you'll still have learned a huge amount in the process.


Leave the criticizing to your friends. If you're passionate about, just start working on it. Seeing some progress will keep you going.


this may actually prove to be a useful thing. If you aren't excited enough to take your project to completion, then maybe folding was a good idea after all...

Just so you know, I am the same way. However, instead of ending up with 100 mediocre/small projects, we end up with 1 or 2 really good ones. You are perfectly normal and are doing nothing wrong.


Why don't you let the market decide? Let users decide.

1. Build a prototype

2. Launch it

3. Get feedback from users

4. Make changes*

*which may mean you need to move onto another idea and build a new prototype

Embrace "failure".


I'd like to echo seeing things through to a prototype. Unless theres some hurdle (technical, time, etc.) actually standing in your way, I fully support the idea of finishing the product in one form or another.

When you start questioning the idea, focus on the use case you're writing it for and cut out all the excess features that don't contribute to it. This will help you get closer to completion.

Remember that you're just one user and cannot possibly be representative of the population. Go test it to see what the market thinks!


It's a very healthy thing, in that it saves you from falling for fads, conspiracy theories, and so forth. But if you are doubting things like clockwork, then the safety valve has come to dominate the rest of the system, so to speak.this can become quite burdensome, especially when many entrepreneurs or innovators are untroubled by such considerations. Self-doubt of this kind can inhibit creativity, either due to repetitive fatigue or loss of motivation midway through a project. But by adjusting your perspective, you can make it work in your favor instead of feeling frustrated or depressed. Cultivating patience plays a key role in this.

Helpful tips I have picked up include: rationing your enthusiasm at the early stage so as to avoid regret over sunk costs; treating your loss of interest as a solvable problem with your business model rather than inherent unworthiness; keeping notes and revisiting older ideas regularly; completing small projects (very important, both for motivation and because every big project can be decomposed into smaller ones); giving away simple ideas - sharing creates virtuous circles and builds your social capital; and generally, developing your emotional intelligence.

Your ideas are aspects of yourself, and hesitancy about developing them is often rooted in memories of prior disappointment which you (understandably) have no desire to repeat: losing your enthusiasm is painful, but less so than having it crushed unexpectedly by someone else. 'Rejection therapy' is one way of getting over this - seek out or accept small rejections, and build up a thicker hide. Sharing some of what you can't use is a viable alternative strategy for those who dislike rejection, and if you feel a possessive twinge about some undeveloped idea, then maybe that's because it does have more potential than you were willing to admit during a critical phase.

The fact that you can inventively criticize your own ideas does not mean they are especially flawed. How many ideas do you know that are so perfect as to be beyond criticism? Even things like fire, the wheel and electricity have their downsides. Importantly, if your enthusiasms can be misplaced, so can your criticisms. In other words, just as you may feel you got carried away by the merits of an idea you had yesterday, you can get carried away by your ability to poke holes in it today. Ration your criticisms in the same manner as your enthusiasms, and accept that both are subjective expressions of your own priorities rather than inherent properties of an idea itself.

Lastly, consider whether your critical faculties are telling you to work on something different. Your words remind me of the phrase 'a solution in search of a problem,' and sometimes the world's response to creativity is not rejection but indifference, which is equally dispiriting. Lasers and many other inventions languished unused for many years, so this is nothing to be ashamed of. But if your ideas seem to lack utility, try seeking out problems instead - things that are clearly making life worse for people, but which are agreed to be unavoidable. These domains can be highly lucrative: after all, what are medicine and politics but attempts to mitigate death and taxes? Indeed, many therapists' and consultants' primary skill is that of identifying problems, and distinguishing between symptom and causes.


Revenue. Once someone pays for something it becomes real IMO. I run digest.io and it was always a side thing until people stared paying and I had to deal w/ customer support and stuff like that. Do whatever you can to just get one paying customer and then whatever you have to do to get your next and your next etc...


If you are your own worst critic that indicates that others think your ideas are valuable, but their opinion should be converted into money, so I should ask to those that give high value to your ideas to pay or to get a share of it. If they don't want to put a single buck in your pocket for following your ideas then you are not your worst critic but a realistic person. If they give you some money to continue, then try to change your mind, you have some value in your head.


also "don't quit your idea".... just put it on the back burner for a bit...

the most important thing is to always have ideas flowing. Don't become stagnate. Invest in your creative fecundity.Imagination will atrophy if not continuously used.


solidify your concept right away... work with a friend whose an artist/designer have the person make your concept palpable.

And try to get other people excited too.




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