Post
Topic
Board Project Development
Re: What to do when you have a great idea and nothing else?
by
nullius
on 01/02/2018, 02:43:07 UTC
Hi guys, I hope this is not a cyclic topic!

It is.  Lots of people have ideas.  All of them are oh so valuable.

So, I've really a great idea and concept that could work in the real world with the use of cryptocurrencies but I'm a civil engineer and, despite my passion for this world, I don't know how to move forward.
My main concern is about the ownership of my idea, because a moment after telling it's not mine anymore.
Do you have some suggestions?

Stop worrying about somebody stealing your precious idea.  Your idea is worthless, and it’s not very good.

Hold on.  I am not trying to be nasty.  I will tell you a little story—the much abbreviated version.

In 2006, I had an idea for a cryptography-based digital currency.  (That doesn’t say much.  People have been trying to build those since the 80s, the seminal early work being Chaum’s.  What we now call “cryptocurrency” is the realization of a cypherpunk dream of the 90s.)  I knew that at the time, I lacked the requisite skillset for building it myself.  Thus, I did nothing.  I did suffer the delusion that my idea was valuable.

In 2008–09, Satoshi Nakamoto published the Bitcoin whitepaper and a working prototype.  His idea was so much better than mine, the comparison is laughable; and that’s no coincidence, for he knew how to build his idea.  If you don’t know enough to put an idea to practical effect, then you don’t know enough to have a good idea in the first instance.

Please.  You say you’re a civil engineer.  What would you say if I were to tell you that I have a valuable breakthrough innovation in your domain of expertise, but I don’t know enough civil engineering to build it?  If you’re really a civil engineer, you’d laugh at me.

Ideas from people who have the knowledge are a dime a dozen.  It’s the implemented ones which are valuable.  And ideas dreamt up without adequate knowledge are absolutely worthless.

ehehe yea, but where to begin? I think I need years of studies and this is a really fast world.

Oh, that’s more or less exactly what I told myself in 2006!

Either get moving fast, or forget about it.  In the former case, you may have a chance of success if you’re smart and hardworking.  In the latter case, you will save yourself many wistful sighs.

(On the third hand, if you are independently wealthy, you could try to hire other people.  You would need much luck for it to not be a disastrous financial sinkhole.  Think, again:  Could somebody without civil engineering expertise competently select a competent civil engineer?  Many “consultants” more or less deliberately take advantage of this peculiar problem, but that’s another topic.)