Valuable Ideas
Like many people, I am always attempting to come up with valuable ideas for a business, project, or resume builder. But I've come to the conclusion that most ideas are anything but valuable. It is the execution that earns money, experience, and recognition. Just look at all the simple ideas done well, or any of the big ideas that go nowhere.
Even if my ideas are not solid or well thought out, I can gain a lot of experience from implementing them. For instance, I had an idea for a web application. I don't even recall what it was. At that time, I had built several websites using JavaScript and HTML, but nothing that required a user login and database. I set out to learn how to build a website with more substance. Back then, Ruby on Rails was king and fresh enough that new tutorials, blogs, courses, and books were coming out all the time.
I purchased a book and read it cover to cover, completing every exercise. I learned some basics of Ruby on Rails, relational databases, and user logins. However, I was still confused and could not put the information into practice. Ruby on Rails did a lot of magic things like automatic routes and database migrations that made no sense to me. I simply didn't understand the basics of building web applications.
Next, I purchased an interactive course that turned out to be excellent. Being my second exposure to the material, along with their exceptional explanations, made me feel comfortable with Ruby on Rails and Ruby in general.
I sat down for the next couple of months, and with every spare hour, I created my million-dollar idea. The website sucked, and finally, I realized the idea sucked, but I now had a finished product, and I had a deeper understanding of using a framework to build complete web applications.
Today I cannot recall what the idea was, but my knowledge of website frameworks has carried forward. After becoming familiar with Ruby, I took some courses in Java, C, and C++. I eventually got a job building websites in PHP. When I had the opportunity, I started building them in Go (Go was the cool new language at the time, though I still use it today). I've built and still work on projects in PHP, Go, Node, Python, and C++.
Sure, I haven't earned that million dollars yet, but I have a good job with an excellent company building small web applications. All this started with self-learning for the execution of a silly idea. An idea with no value.
Something I often think about: what if I do have that billion dollar idea - will I know how to execute it well enough to make something productive? My brother probably kicks himself considering an idea we had years ago: A website for sharing photos with family and friends. I didn't know how to build it at the time. In the time I tried to figure out how to create an application, Instagram came out and became quite popular. No, I don't think I could have created Instagram, or even if I did, I wouldn't know how to market it. Photo sharing was just an idea that sounded fun to build. Photo sharing was obviously an idea that had potential - but I was not prepared to execute it.
Coming soon: there was an idea that got me started in dabbling with web development in the first place. It's not an original idea, and many people have done it since that time, but it is still an idea that I want to complete just for the sake of doing it- even if at just a basic level. My brother teases me about how long I've been planning it. I'm sure I'll write about it soon, and hopefully, I will have an example to show if I find some spare time.