Geeks and "Idea People" Don't Mix

Since a couple of you are wondering what went on last night, I’m going to blog it in a way that doesn’t single out one person. This is actually a disappointing trend that I’ve been noticing lately, and I want to capture it in a blog without really railroading a single person.

The #1 thing people like about me is my passion and energy. (Technically, those may be two things, but with me, they go together.) Although I do have my down moments (and sometimes days), in general, when you meet me you’ll meet one of the most enthusiastic, passionate people out there. I’m always excited about something. I’m blessed to be an idea person, which means that I will spontaneously throw new ideas into a conversation, and I’m able to see obvious gaps in a market that you or I can exploit to make money. This is what my friends love about me. Some of you really get into the energy that drives me every day and have committed to helping me see through my ideas. My favorite of you are the realists who know me well, but also know when to shoot down an idea. Here’s a great example:

This weekend, I went to IBI. Of course, IBI is full of idea people, so we toss around tons of stuff. One of my more recent ideas popped up there. What if I did a lunch club, with no more than 10 or 15 people, and we targeted small business owners and entrepreneurs? Have 2 people come in and pay $100 each to be speakers and be guaranteed personal connections and networking with the 10 other people, who get a free lunch. Cool, huh? I gave this idea to a couple people at IBI and everyone agreed this was a neat idea, but it wouldn’t be big enough for me to really explore. At most, I’d make $150 a week after paying for everyone’s lunch. This is a great example of the kind of stuff I go through on a daily basis. (I’ll try to blog more of these as I have them so some of you can pick up and explore ones that resonate with you.)

I love the energy I get from other idea people. I feed off it. Often, we end up at a whiteboard, furiously drawing circles to represent market segments and calculating how much money is involved. Of course, being around only idea people and generating ideas all the time is exhausting, and that’s where the team members come in… the execution will rest on their shoulders, and they’ll take an idea and run with it. The idea people and the execution people are totally different people; idea people often have a hard time focusing and we usually have 3 or 4 business ideas in various stages of execution at a time. The execution people are here to make sure the really good ideas do stick to the wall by actually forcing us to sit down and set goals instead of moving on to the Next Big Thing. C is a great example of an excellent execution team leader; he brings some reality back into my life by telling me to settle down and get on with it instead of bouncing around like crazy.

Hardcore geeks and idea people don’t always mix. Geeks tend to be very negative about anything new or changing, and they also tend to have a really tough time gauging the size of a market. Furthermore, they like to use rational analysis to shoot things down, as this proves how intelligent they are. (It doesn’t matter that sometimes they’re dead wrong about what they’re shooting down, or they have no personal experience in a specific area.) For instance, remember when the iPod came out? Slashdot was full of geeks saying “Lame!” Guess what… the iPod has been, unquestionably, one of the most successful MP3 players out there.

In a similar vein, there are a few people out there (I hesitate to call them “friends”) who seem intent on shooting down every idea I have with “That will never work”, “If it was so easy someone else would have done it already”, etc. Inevitably, every person I know like this also happens to be a hardcore computer geek — of the type that runs some variant of Linux on his home PC, thumbs his nose at major corporations, etc.

Realistically, I know not every idea I have will be a million-dollar money maker. A lot of my ideas aren’t even necessarily money-related; I like to evangelize things like my Treo, for instance. I’ve gotten a lot better recently about only evangelizing to people who would really benefit from my ideas. The next step I need to take is distancing my ideas from those who are overly negative about them, because all it does is throw me into a depression tailspin. Unfortunately, my predisposition to picking up energy from other people allows me to pick up negative energy as easily as positive energy. When I am around those with a negative disposition about something, or those who are skeptical about everything that isn’t already working for them, I become negative as well. This isn’t a healthy state.

Hardcore geeks and idea people, it seems, don’t mix. Perhaps I should state this as… hardcore geeks with an extremely skeptical persona (and we all know some people like that) don’t mix with idea people. Note to self: Hang out with entrepreneurs more and Linux geeks less. 🙁