Jim Lipsey

I just added Unusual Business Ideas That Work to my slowly-growing blogroll. It’s a site that profiles oddball ideas that ended up being wildly successful, like the guy who sends mail from Santa Claus, or folks who sell t-shirts. While the business concepts draw our attention for being quirky, the recurring theme in all these cases appears to be that success came not from the original idea, but from great execution. This point is often missed. Too much importance is given to a new product idea rather than how to turn it into a success. Fearful of being ripped off, private inventors and aspiring entrepreneurs will zealously guard their innovations, doing so in a manner that prohibits forming partnerships or advancing development of their idea.

Unfortunately, this tendency toward being over-cautious may only going get worse with the emergence of institutional patent trolls.