Let Ideas Collide

We treat our ideas like treasures.

We hide them. We protect them from the world. We are scared that if we show them, they will break.

Inside our heads, they are safe. They are perfect. But this is dangerous.

An idea that you do not test is not a treasure. It is a parasite.

When an idea stays in your head, you think it is brilliant. You identify with it. It becomes you. This is a trap. If you have only one “great” idea, it is like having only one coin in your pocket.

You are terrified to lose it. So you never spend it. You never test it. You live in a fantasy for years. And then, when reality finally hits, the disappointment is terrible.

You must let your ideas crash into reality. And you must do it fast. You do not jump off a cliff and try to knit a parachute on the way down. You check if the parachute works before you jump.

It is the same with products. Do not write the whole book before you know if people want to read the first chapter.

Do not build a big platform before you see if anyone clicks a button.

If you build alone in your room, you build something nobody wants. This costs time. And time is the only thing you cannot get back.

The solution is simple. Do not protect one idea. Have thousands of them. When you have many ideas, you are not afraid to kill them. You throw them against the wall. You see what sticks.

This is validation. You try to break your own ideas.

• Write the tweet before the post.

• Write the post before the book.

• Build the prototype before the product.

Do it in public. Let people react. If nobody cares, you save months of work. If people criticize you, good. Now you know how to fix it.

Reality is a filter. When you let ideas collide with the real world, most will break. This is good. The ones that survive are the ones you keep.

Do not protect your ideas like children. Send them to war. The only way to find the truth is to see if they bleed.