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Be careful not to confuse IDEAS with OPPORTUNITIES.

With caveats, you can generally be loose with ideas.

Opportunities are a very different matter. Opportunities represent an immediate or near-immediate path to revenue. They are stolen every day.

What's the difference?

IDEA:

Let's make a new toaster oven to sell at Walmart.

OPPORTUNITY:

I just met with a Joe Buyer at Walmart. They need a toaster oven with a digital timer to retail for no more than $59. They are willing to issue a PO for 100K units. They are actively looking for one. If they can see a viable prototype they'll issue the PO and close the deal.

I hope you can spot the difference between the two. Which one would you steal?



I'm sad there is no way to upvote this more than once. That's all you need to know about startup ideas in a few lines of text.




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