The Idea Maze - cdixon.org  ## Metadata - Author: **cdixon.org** - Full Title: The Idea Maze - Category: #articles - URL: https://cdixon.org/2013/08/04/the-idea-maze ## Highlights - A good founder is capable of anticipating which turns lead to treasure and which lead to certain death. A bad founder is just running to the entrance of (say) the “movies/music/filesharing/P2P” maze or the “photosharing” maze without any sense for the history of the industry, the players in the maze, the casualties of the past, and the technologies that are likely to move walls and change assumptions. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hbd05kb34tm07nmswn19bps8)) - History. If your idea has been tried before (and almost all good ideas have), you should figure out what the previous attempts did right and wrong ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hbd07ws2e3mwv2ajavpcdedz)) - Analogy. You can also build the maze by analogy to similar businesses. If you are building a “peer economy” company it can be useful to look at what Airbnb did right. If you are building a marketplace you should understand eBay’s beginnings. Etc ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hbd08gf00gzyfyyvehm5m9yg)) - Theories. There are now decades of historical data on tech startups, and smart observers have sifted through to develop theories that generalize that data ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hbd0960dpj14mqewfc9fbcxy)) - Direct experience. A lot of good startup founders figure out the maze through direct experience, often at work ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hbd09k5sk1ncax8a6900mad5)) - The metaphor of a maze also helps you think about competition. Competition from other startups is usually just a [distraction](http://cdixon.org/2010/06/26/competition-is-overrated/). In all likelihood, they won’t take the same path, and the presence of others in your maze means you might be onto something. Your real competition – and what you should worry about – is the years you could waste going down the wrong path ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hbd0a7qv0et5hz0vy4809wp1))