“Myth #1: It takes a great idea to start a company

Reality: Starting a company with a “great idea” might be a bad idea. Few of the visionary companies began life with a great idea. In fact, some began without any specific idea and a few even began with outright failures.” Furthermore, regardless of the founding concept, the visionary companies were significantly less likely to have early entrepreneurial success than the comparison in our study. Like the parable of the tortoise and the hare, visionary companies often get off to a slow start, but win the long race.”

Now don't misinterpret again – i am not saying that Siphs is a visionary company, but it is a company, and gasp, it does have **paying** clients. So regardless of your personal assessment, clearly we have a working model. As for my introduction to the idea, sure that could have been better.

The point was that people are more important than ideas and that you should just start something that lets you leverage your expertise. If you fail, big deal – you learn from your mistakes and keep trying. Perhaps you've never heard of how Sony or even EMC to name a few got started? No idea other than they wanted to start a business.

Lets take Sony -

“When Masaru Ibuka founded his company in August of 1945, he had no specific product idea. In fact, Ibuka and his seven initial employees had a brainstorming session – after starting the company – to decide what products to make. According to Akio Morita, who joined the company shortly after its founding, 'The small group sat in conference… and for weeks they tried to figure out what kind of business this new company could enter in order to make money to operate.' They considered a wide range of possibilities, from sweetened bean-paste soup to miniature golf equipment and slide rules. Not only that, Sony's first product attempt (a simple rice cooker) failed to work properly and its first significant product (a tape recorder) failed in the market place. The company kept itself alive in the early days by stitching wires on cloth to make crude, but sellable, heating pads.”

A good team can leverage their wisdom to create a great idea.

A mediocre team can turn a great idea into failure.

I doubt very much that he is encouraging entrepreneurs to throw themselves into random projects without any idea about how they are going to make it work. What I think he is trying to encourage is to avoid paralysis by analysis.

There comes a point where you need to realize that you have done as much forward planning as you can, and you need to rely on the strength and wisdom of your team to get you through the unforeseen challenges.

Your point is sound. If you start without any “idea” your enterprise is going to amount to pray, spray and hope something sticks. However, if you start with a great team with a general goal that they seek to accomplish, sometimes it can be worth a lot more than a rigid play that excludes the ability to change.

I agree you should not wait for anything… But that does not mean “the absence of a business idea os OK.”

I mean what is the point of starting a business if it does not have a business idea behind it? You end up with a business like Siphs thing, where every time you introduce the company you have to start by saying “now that sounds awfully similar to AddThis or ShareThis, but…” Why would you advise people reading this to do that?

If you don't start out with a business idea, you are not starting a business, you are just a bunch of hobbyists. I don't mean that in a pejorative sense, it's just that a hobby is something you like to do and do not expect to make a living off it.

Yes, a lot of businesses morph, and who has not heard the story of the multi-million startup that is doing something completely different than what was intended at the beginning? But that is very different than not keeping your eye on the ball.

Yes, start with a business idea. Figure out how the heck you are going to make money beforehand. Keep you eye on the ball. Keep watching the market. Adjust your business idea if the conditions change. Move on to a totally new business idea if you see a better opportunity. But never, ever start without a business idea.

Otherwise you end up saying “we are very much like X, but we have a better pricing structure.” What does that mean? You will get crushed by other people once they do something as simple as change their pricing structure to drown you out.

Rather pathetic. Why's this guy giving advice?