I’m at the Colombo Hackathon. It’s pretty great, I can barely get a blog out. The amount and quality of startup ideas is impressive, and now people are working on realifying those ideas in teams. It’s quite inspiring really.
There’s also an exit, ie, you can cash out, theoretically. Venture Engine is looking for business proposals which get polished and put in front of actual investors,including the Indian Angel Network.
I say inspiring because I feel like doing something. I’m actually working on a location-based cabs app right now. You can help by clicking this survey, on what type of cab you take.
Their are people here doing products for weddings, tourism, charity, reality TV. These are local and global in scope. Meanwhile there are mentors (from ticketslk and create.ly, among others) sitting and giving great advice. A while back I asked if Sri Lanka really had a startup culture. Now I think it does. This is it.
I think the problem in Sri Lankan start-ups is that most of them are either clones of existing successful companies or only work in Sri Lanka or based on dying technology like the SMS app working at the start-up, and the important thing is they’re not using social media to it’s full potential.
The time has come where start-ups can work as stand alone apps, they need to be integrated with social media. You don’t have to make something totally new to be a good start up, but a simple start up with smart social media would do just fine best example is – Pinterest
An idea is something valuable.
iPad is just an idea.
What this sort of events do is create a false culture and clan mentality for these ideas to be stolen.
Inventors come with their inspirations, put it in the open and try to code it /implement it.
What could otherwise have been a a very valuable copy-write/patent is stolen without the awareness of the owner. End of the day the unfortunate creator goes home with the “satisfaction” that his idea made ppl listen and think. True, it did. It made the real business hawks think and make a business venture / money maker out of this.
Just imagine what would Bill Gates be today, if he attended a hackathon and gave away the basic concepts of the Windows GUI.
In today’s world nothing is more valuable than an idea or a concept.
Imagine what Windows would be without DOS, or Apple without Xerox. It’s not the idea that counts, it’s the execution.
Having the idea is one thing, for it to evolve into an actual product you have to get it out of your head and share. You need to get ideas out there, ideally in front of customers, but among like minded people to start.
Take the iPad for example. It was predicted in 2001 a Space Odyssey, which was in like the 70s or 80s. Then there were tablet PCs for almost a decade before. Even the iPhone, I had a Sony touchscreen smartphone in like 2003. What innovation is (as I have blogged: http://indi.ca/2011/07/what-is-innovation/) is not the idea, anymore than an organism is its genotype. Read the literal definition of innovation (Ruksan) it fully includes applying an old idea in a new place. Like Sri Lankan execution.
In today’s world, as in yesterday’s world, nothing is more valuable than a sublime execution of form, which adapts to and fits into a changing environment. It’s simple evolution baby. Your ideas need to walk the earth.
looking at the start-ups @cmbhackathon don’t think their are any important ones ;)
There is a big difference between today and yesterday.
Yesterday’s ideas found it hard to be implemented. That is true. Some time back humans found it hard to fly.
Today we are a global village. Anyone who has an idea can implement it. The world is open via the net. many forms of communication and incubators exists. We no longer need to be at the mercy of those who have the capital to get our ideas implemented. And there is no sane excuse to go donate your idea so some businessman can make money out of it.
All the nations came ahead because inventors were given the ability to grow, expand and build the ideas. We are still this way coz our mentality is such that we cant do anything. While others fly we think we cant – we give them the sole ownership of flight.
How many events of entrepreneurship gave our companies sponsored?
How many programs have the conducted to educate the prospective developers about the opportunities available to convert their genius to profit?
Why, think, why Companies actually sponsor this sort of thing…
Walking the earth is not too hard now…its only that some ppl do not like others to know that this is so. I wonder WHY…
Hiding away your idea could be the worst idea ever. It’s always better to put your ideas out there and get people buzzing about it. That’s the whole idea behind the open source community. That’s what makes companies from reddit to Facebook release their source code in very permissive (Apache) licenses. You can have a great idea, fear that people will steal it and hide away in your cave and code and code and code, polishing up your app, only to realise that when you come out with your app the whole world has changed and moved on and there is no real need for your app anymore.
Usage is like oxygen for ideas. You can never fully anticipate how an audience is going to react to something you’ve created until it’s out there. That means every moment you’re working on something without it being in the public it’s actually dying, deprived of the oxygen of the real world. It’s even worse because development doesn’t happen in a vacuum — if you have a halfway decent idea, you can be sure that there are two or three teams somewhere in the world that independently came up with it and are working on the same thing, or something you haven’t even imagined that disrupts the market you’re working in. – http://ma.tt/2010/11/one-point-oh/
Open source is not about ideas – its about the implementation.
Mark ( of Facebook) came up with the idea. He then implemented is as a product facebook.com
Sharing the code and sharing the idea are two things.
I am clueless why you think one needs to code and code to present an idea to the world. There are things like copy-writes / patents. An inventor, specially Srilankan inventors should more actively pursue these avenues.
Also you must have missed my point completely. I agree that hiding an idea is a poor strategy. The point is that in the modern age, you can implement is yourself.
This is the message that we should take out. Not have this sort of Company sponsored events to milk out the ideas.
OMG computer nerds.
While it’s awesome if you can develop your idea on your own and create a cool product that actually works, a lot of people just have an idea and not the resources/time/skill-set to develop it further. Events like this are great places to meet like-minded individuals who have the same attitude as you about starting up, and may be able to help you develop your idea (like you said, not necessarily programmers – they could be managers, marketers, artists, whatever).
And people not only present their ideas and go home, they create a small team to actually work on those ideas and develop it into a product. They get to work together for 36 hours, at the end of which they may or may not get venture capital funding, BUT the most important thing they get is that they will meet other people who will help them directly (hands on) or indirectly (through advice) develop their idea into a product. I like to think of it as an extended Refresh Colombo networking session with more food and lots of people working away on their laptops. :D
There is something like this as well, I think Gayan is right, developing your idea is one thing and developing and giving away your idea is something else. if someone has a good idea and if he think it’s a good idea he should put up a team and develop that idea in to a product. what would have happened if Mark gave his ideas to the WInklevos twins? Then it’s the Winklevos twins that gets all the credit for Facebook.
if money is a problem then you can start small, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft all have their beginnings at a small place. what happens here is all the rich investors will take away these talented people’s ideas and make it in to a product using the huge venture money they have, and then the original developers who had the idea first ends up with nothing
Like Sean Parker says at the Social Network movie, “they don’t need you, they need your ideas, they’ll take that idea and say wipe your chin and walk away, and nobody (these big venture guys) like taking orders from a teenager”
well said RukshanR!
Startups is a great spectator sport. A lot of people can intelligently talk about ideas, talk about how best to do something, talk about the perils of sharing ideas, perils of funding etc. and have a great time and feel good about yourselves.
Unfortunately, none of that has real value. And unless you are in it, you only know what you read about in the media. And the media only showcases the edge cases. The extreme wins, extreme losses, and drama. You hear about a startup after it wins of fails. The years of effort that went into it before it became the worlds biggest site is forgotten in a the quick 30 second sound bite.
In such an environment its pretty common to place a huge value on the ideas. But in reality startups are all about the details of execution. Your idea takes one day to form. But to get to a winning company with it takes 3 years with a team. How much of value will you palce on the one day of work vs. 3 years of work refining, testing and growing that seed?
Most of the big wins you see and adore today starting from Facebook, Twitter, Google, Microsoft, Pintrest etc etc. were not brand new ideas. Facebook was not first social network. But they executed on the idea differently.
If someone steals an idea and works on it, it is unlikely they will execute it the same way that you would have. If someone tries to take over your company after funding, kick you out and run it, they will only have a very small amount of value because just like you thought about the first idea and grew it, you’d have more vision and depth to offer in the next years of execution in the company.
Facebook would not be Facebook without Mark was kicked out early on.
If you have actual value you will not find yourself out of luck in the startup world usually.
this is BS in a country like ours where rouges of everykind prevail. and i have personal experience of ‘concept/idea rouges’. beware, you’ve been warned. i feel sorry for this young talented guys.
Agreed and the thing is that the organizers of the hackathon never mentioned about indian venture capitalists are taking part in the event and Venture Engine is looking for business proposals which get polished and put in front of actual investors,including the Indian Angel Network.
This is not a good thing for start-ups in the country. It’s stealing ideas :|
Thanks :D at least few people agree with me
People who’ve never done a startup always go around about how important ideas are. Actually, ideas are a dime a dozen. Anybody can come up with ideas – I can tell you because I hear pitches every day for the “next great thing” :D But are any of them good? That’s a different matter.
One of the easiest ways to find out if your idea is any good is to talk to others, put your idea out and see what people say. In Sri Lanka, we have this habit of hiding everything. We hold close to our ideas and say others will steal it. We don’t let anybody else know what we are doing because they’ll either put the “evil eye” on it or try to sabotage it. We have to get out of this rut.
The very people who argue we are in a “global village” and can do anything without putting our ideas in front of people are the ones who are disregarding the global village. Because you’re saying that though we live in a globabl village, we should hold close to our ideas and implement them on our own. You don’t need to – you can find help from anywhere else in the world if you’re but willing to talk to other like-minded people to get input, help, and advice.
But will we ever get out of our own mental ruts? That is the question …
Te problem is not telling your ideas, it’s about to whom you tell your ideas to. you can get together with like minded people and put together an idea, but not to investors who are looking for an idea for them to get $, the whole purpose of the hackathon is
“Venture Engine is looking for business proposals which get polished and put in front of actual investors,including the Indian Angel Network.”
I was a follower of this hackathon when indica first post about this. However the organizers never told that they’re actually looking for an idea put in to indian angel network or any other company. we thought it was an event organized by people who actually like to see startups in the country.
Like Gayan said “This is the message that we should take out. Not have this sort of Company sponsored events to milk out the ideas.”
Peace out
Dude, Indian Angel Network is the real draw, and was on all the marketing material. How do you think start-ups happen? They pitch to investors and get funded. You can only go so far on hustle and your parents’ dime.
The goal for most people doing startups is to get venture capital, and they’re getting million dollar investments in India.
You seem to be under the impression that the point of start-ups is to not start them. Starting them requires capital, which is why people hustle to get their ideas in front of investors. Which is why this is a great opportunity. You can obviously choose not to. Other people want to, you know, start.