So, You Have an Idea That Could Change the World
Hi, I’m Micah. I help people design brands and digital products for a living.
Before becoming a designer, I was an activist and community organizer, so the projects I seek out are in that sweet spot between tech and impact. If I’m designing something that empowers people, I’m happy.
So, I get a lot of pitches from people who want me to help them build something that they think could change the world.
Some of those pitches turn into consulting gigs or a more long-term partnership. But 80% or more of them don’t go anywhere, often because the pitch is filled with red flags.
Since the red flags are often the same ones, I decided to write this post to help entrepreneurs who may not realize why they’re having a hard time getting people like me to help out with their project.
If I sent you this post, it’s because your pitch fell flat for me, and I hope that this honest feedback will be helpful. If you found this post on your own, maybe it’ll help you too, even if it just validates that you’re on the right track.
Common Red Flags of World-Changing Project Ideas
🚩 1 · All you have is an idea
This is kind of the meta red flag that sums up most of the other ones.
If you have an idea, but you don’t have relevant experience, funding, solid cofounders, and a clear plan… then you don’t really have anything yet.
In a world of 8 billion people, it’s almost guaranteed that your idea is neither new nor original. So what exactly are you bringing to the table? If you want people to put their time and energy into your thing, you need to show that you have something substantial to offer beyond just an idea.
🚩 2 · You don’t have much relevant experience
Here’s an excerpt from a pitch I received recently:
“I have an idea for a platform which could facilitate a new form of democracy… a DEMOCRATIC version of facebook, twitter, amazon and google all rolled into one.
I haven’t done any programming since I had a commodore64 in high school … I teach and produce music from our home.”
If a person said that they wanted to fly to the moon, but they don’t know the first thing about building rockets, they’d be laughed out of the room.
So why do people who have no experience building scalable software think that they are going to build a world-changing platform on the first try? Do they think that just because they use apps, they can lead a complicated software development process that builds apps?
Advice: If you don’t have relevant experience, stop trying to enlist people into your project. Instead, look around for people already working on projects that are similar to your idea, and ask if there’s any way you can help them.
If nobody’s making the thing you want to see, and you’re really serious about making it happen: go learn the skills you need and then work on other people’s teams for awhile before you try to start and lead one of your own.
🚩 3 · You don’t have any funding
Here’s an excerpt from the same person quoted above:
“I’m afraid I have no funding at all… I’m not looking to make money from it myself but if you think of any way to find the funding to pay yourself, I’d still love your help.”
I would love to live in a post-capitalist world where everyone’s needs were met and we got to work on things without having to worry about how that will translate to paying the bills. But we don’t.
This is my job. This is how I make a living.
If I’m working for free (or if you’re asking me to raise money to pay myself), that makes me a cofounder and an investor. But it’s unlikely I would cofound a company with someone I’ve never worked with, and who isn’t bringing anything to the table besides an idea.
Advice: Raise some money before trying to get people to work for you, or be explicit that you’re asking them to be an investor.
🚩 4 · You don’t have any cofounders
Teams make things happen, and the founding team is the kernel of collaboration around which the rest of the team grows.
The best founding teams are people who already trust each other because they’ve worked together before, which is another great reason to follow my advice from Red Flag 2.
Advice: Again, work on other people’s teams for awhile: you may end up working with people who you like, and who would make great cofounders when the time is right.
Or, work on lower-stakes side projects with people who you like, which will give you a sense of what it’s like to work with them and give you the opportunity to build a trusting relationship.
🚩 5 · You don’t have a clear plan
There are two huge steps one must take to bring a pie-in-the-sky idea into the world. The first is building the thing (which you need experience, funding, and cofounders to do)… but the second is a plan for how that thing actually breaks through the noise and has an impact.
In the tech world, this would be a product adoption strategy. In the advocacy world, this would be a theory of change. Both are similar in that they start with a set of hypotheses about the world and the hurdles your project will face, and clearly outlines the strategies you’ll use to overcome them.
If you assume that “if you build it, they will come,” that’s a big red flag.
Advice: Ask yourself the following questions:
Who are your first users/members/beneficiaries? What do they need? Where do they congregate?
Why have similar projects succeeded and/or failed in the past?
What are people using currently to get this need met? What’s working/not working about it?
What would make it hard for people to get on board with this? How can you make that easier?
etc
🚩 6 · You asked me to sign an NDA
As I stated earlier, ideas are nothing by themselves: they require teamwork, skilled execution, and a clear plan. If you’re asking me to sign a binding contract (which is essentially a threat to sue me if I ever end up talking about something similar with someone else), you’re shooting yourself in the foot.
Advice: Freely talk about your idea to as many people as you can, and hope that at least one of them will agree to help you make it a reality. Theft isn’t the biggest risk for new projects, obscurity and lack of momentum is.
Good luck!
If you’ve made it this far, and you’re working on a project with none of these red flags, please say hello!
