Dangerously Close To Crossing The Line

Ramit Sethi recently wrote about the evils of rushing to profits with your ideas before you make them valuable. Seth Godin pointed the article our in his blog.

In theory, it sounds nice - "Don't worry about making money. Just make something valuable and the money will come."

Unfortunately I don't think this is entirely accurate, and believe it could lead to painful failure for small business owners and entrepreneurs.

As we've said before, the universe and the marketplace reward you for the value you bring to the table. That part we agree on.

But I don't believe that all value can be monetized.

If you simply focus on creating value without having a resolute plan for making money from it, you will likely become a victim of the "mousetrap myth" and wind up with a really cool widget/service that nobody wants to buy. That has no value for you.

This is where the necessity for trying to make money before you make a perfect product/service comes from. I believe you must test your idea for sale-ability before you spend a ton of time making it perfectly valuable. In that process, you may be accused of being speedy and greedy. But I would label you smart - and actually calculating. I believe rushing into product development before defining and testing  a market for it is speedy.

My suggestion: come up with an idea. Try to sell it. Then try to make it valuable. If you can't sell it, don't bother. Move on to your next idea. 

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