Doing Vs Gadoing

I see the explosion of startup activity in Krakow, my home town. There are many groups,
communities, events. Young, energetic people meet, exchange ideas, talk. Having a startup has become a lifestyle. But the Dragon Valley (the nickname for the Krakow entrepreneurship community) is not the Silicon Valley. At least not yet. There seems to be a cult of entrepreneurship lifestyle and bright ideas. There are plenty of very good ideas. But what seems to be missing is the focus of turning the ideas into successful businesses and products. We need more high profile successful businesses and products. Here is my call: stop gadoing and start doing ("gadoing" is a phonetic construct, in Polish it means talking). So yes, stop talking and start doing the job.

Creating an idea is fun. Turning the idea into a successful product is still fun, but requires a lot, and I do mean a lot of hard work. Work, which not always is fun. But without actually doing the hard part, there won't be any success. It was the statement by Steve Jobs from The Lost Interview I have remembered the most:

"One of the things that really hurt Apple was after I left, John Sculley got a very serious disease. And that disease—I've seen other people get it, too—it's the disease of thinking that a having a great idea is really 90 percent of the work. And if you just tell people, 'here's this great idea,' then of course they can go off and make it happen. The problem with that is that there's a tremendous amount of craftsmanship between a having a great idea and having a great product."

The disease Steve was describing is widespread. Most startups think the idea equals the success. And actually it does not. The idea is just the beginning. Often not the most important one. If you have a really bright idea, rest assured somebody has already had it before. Now what will make you successful is how effective you are in transforming this idea into a product. "We could do this, we could do that.", "If XYZ adopts our solution...", "If we make it this or that way...". Stop gaduing. Stop talking. Get rid of "coulds" and "ifs". Deliver. Only then you will be successful. And let me repeat once again. It is not the idea that counts. It is the execution. Ask any VC or a business angel, if you don't take my word. I played a business angel myself. I've heard hundreds of ideas. But very, very few entrepreneurs to be have convinced me they had the guts, the desire, the focus, the sacrifice, the devotion to stop doing everything else and put 110% of the effort to make the idea happen.