The Weird Economics of Information and Startups
There’s an interesting post up at the Union Square blog about the weired economics of information related to startups. I’m involved in a startup now and this is something we have been thinking about a lot the last few months. Especially after reading the Path 101 blog. We found the idea of being totally open interesting and I think the Union Square post describes pretty precisely how we have been thinking and what we have experienced.
Ideally we would want to share as much as possible with as many as possible to get as much feedback and learn as much as we could, and by doing that test and improve the idea. This way some risk could to some extent be taken out of the project. However, the degree of openess, as it is described in the post, has been directly related to how we have judged our ability to execute. As we have gotten the team and the resources together we have gradualy been feeling more confident and opened up more both in terms of what information is shared and with whom it’s shared. The result is that some questions we have been discussing for a while have been answered, and we have learned a bunch of new stuff. So the ability to execute is really the key and the sooner you feel confident about your ability to execute the better. Which, is easier said than done, since it turns out that execution really is the hardest part.
