Navigating the Clutter of Realizing an Idea: A Graduate-to-be Perspective
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One thing that has always been prominent for me, my colleagues, and every person who was in my path growing up: Everyone has ‘that’ idea that will change the world, shake the industry, and will summon their inner Steve Jobs and Elon Musk. The rush of making such ideas realistic can get so overwhelming, it becomes a clutter.
Mind you, I chose the word ‘clutter’ here to indicate the ‘confusion’ when attempting to actualize such ideas_._
Furthermore, everything you are about to read in this post, is on the basis of my beliefs and personal experiences. I will dive into what differentiates ‘great’ ideas, and hopefully reach some understanding for a concluding result on how — I feel — such clutter must be navigated, so you don’t drown in what I call the “Endless Swirl of Hopelessness”.
ShareCloud: A Social Media Fantasy
When I was in high school, I was — subjectively — ahead of all my friends in following the trends tech-wise. Meaning, I was, well… the Tech Nerd. I loved tech so much, that it was most of my talks. I mean… I did not find joy talking about anything school related, but I can talk for hours about Siri on the brand-new iPhone 4S back then. The drive I summoned to discuss what felt outstanding, was driven by who was my inspiration back then: Steve Jobs. The Late Apple CEO was someone ‘unpredictable’ to some extent, and whether you like him or not, there was one thing about Steve that always stood out: his charisma to draw you in with his ideas.
With that being said, I wanted some of that magic for myself. So I started attempting to think differently in everything I do. So much, that I began noticing that my ideas did not make any sense:
“I wanna make an App that can solve my homeworks for me” — already existed.
“I wanna make an App that can get me unlimited candy” —What in the Type II diabetes was I thinking?
“I wanna make an App that can generate money” — Some guy is probably laughing in Crypto at this.
I was totally confused and my ideas were unfocused_._ My successive disappointments led me to what I believed will be my game changer idea:
ShareCloud: A Social media competitor by students, for students.
Now, before you rage quit the post, let me tell you more… I found some website that provides guidance on how to make your own forum-style social media platform with moderators and all (Discord Servers were not a thing back then). Next thing I know, I started spreading the word in my school about my “next big thing”, and eventually the idea’s outcome was not even close to what I aimed for. It was that moment, where I had the first taste of the “Endless Swirl of Hopelessness” (more on that in the next section.)
What’s the deal about “The Endless Swirl of Hopelessness” ?
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While defining this sentence might be self explanatory, I want to break it down into 3 sub definitions, and in backward order starting with Hopelessness. Hopelessness on one hand might be easy to define as a lack of hope, but the Merriam-Webster Dictionary on the other hand provides a much more sophisticated, and rather interesting definition. It defines hopelessness as being “incapable of redemption or improvement” leading to “having no expectation of good or success”. Moreover, hopelessness is that false state of mind, that many of us fall into its trap, either for believing we don’t deserve a second chance, or for getting looked down at after presenting our ‘next big thing’. There is also one more definition I’ll leave for a moment.
Moving on, I purposely chose the word ‘Swirl’ here and not ‘Spiral’ because in a Spiral you voluntarily follow its path, while in a Swirl you are being sucked/forced in by some eddying or whirling current, making it a perfect explanation for how deep and harmful that state of hopelessness can get. Let that sink in for a second (no pun intended 🙃), hopelessness is deep enough it sucks you in, and because you feel like not being redemption-worthy, it eventually feels Endless.
To put it all in perspective, Let us combine all of the definitions above. Let’s see… We’re talking about “A state of being not worthy of success, with a whirling force into the endless of such state”, right? Where does that lead us?
Well… it leads — as a result — to that third definition I mentioned above, which is being “incapable of solution, management, or accomplishment” as a result of that state’s presence.
Of course, you might wonder why waste a couple minutes of your precious time to go over such a deep definition? Simply put: To emphasize how deep the issue is. In fact, this is how a lot of “great” ideas that just needed that extra tweak, got wasted in the swirl of hopelessness. On the other hand, this is how outstanding innovators quit because they either did not put enough effort into their idea, or did not think of putting constructive criticism into work, and to simply… try again!
The Other Side of the ShareCloud story
As it turns out, I was starting to get affected by that hopeless swirl, that I forgot to actually utilize the experience, and look at the upside. It took me a good while till I found out later, that my idea — although mediocre— had a small impact. A Spark you may say. In a nutshell, I found out that I was the first person who actually brought the idea of student forums into my school, and the fact of having an interesting web community, where students can chill and speak up their minds, that was — wait for it — not Facebook. In other words, Facebook was the only trendy social media platform in my days, there was no Instagram, no Snapchat, nothing! So the fact that a student took initiative to make a small forum network for other students, that was not Facebook, blew everyone’s minds and everyone was willing to give it a chance.
This actually taught me the first thing about “great” ideas: they solve a problem for a specific audience. Moreover, If you do not have a problem you are attempting to solve, no one will take interest in your ‘idea’. In fact, the whole reason people get hooked on other amazing ideas, it is because — whether you realize it or not — they solve an issue. Facebook for instance started first as a solution addressing the problem of students’ communication at Harvard University.
Reiterating on Steve Jobs
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In fact, here’s an interesting fact: Steve Jobs and the purpose of coming out with the iPhone as a touch screen device was:
Wait for it!
Finding a solution for the hardware keyboard on phones back in 2007.
Photo by Thai Nguyen on Unsplash
Let me put that in perspective again, Apple (led by Steve and his team) observed what phones looked like back then (sample photo above). Next, they noticed that the keyboard is always available for you, whether you want it or not. This motivated Apple to rethink the phone, by taking out all the clutter of conventional phones, and adding a giant touch screen with a mobile software that was ahead of its time.
Combine this revolutionary idea, with Steve’s belief in his idea, and you get the birth of the Smartphone’s era, starting with the iPhone.
What interested me in Steve’s experience though, is that he dared to reinvent the wheel. Furthermore, a “great” idea does not only start with a remarkable solution, but your solution should not reinvent the wheel unless you can absolutely do it better. If Steve did not sincerely believe he can redefine the smartphone, and hence venture on a risky mission to reinvent the wheel of mobile communications, the iPhone would have been perceived much differently.
I should tell you that the iPhone was not the first product to come out with the concept of a touch screen. However, that idea was original enough , first of all, to be brought to a smartphone, and second of all, to get improved with multi-touch to allow gestures and multi-finger touch registering. In other words, It was great because it was original. It was a combination never combined that way before, to yield the result we all witnessed.
What will I leave you with?
As I mentioned, your idea should find a solution to a problem for a specific audience. Your Idea should not reinvent the wheel, unless it can provide a much better solution. Your Idea should be original. And the secret sauce? You should believe in your Idea’s potential before exposing it to the world.
So… After that long discussion of what makes a good idea, how exactly do you navigate the clutter of finding that idea?
My answer given this part of my life? Patience and Persistence.
I am currently 23 years old at the time of writing this, and what I learned throughout my short span of time into ‘adulthood’ so far, is that the best thing you can do for yourself is to educate yourself on the issues you can actually provide a solution for. Adding to that, always keep an open mindset , take criticism …like a lot of it. Take it with a grain of salt though…and always focus on the bigger prize:
How can I make my idea 0.01% better today?
Have you met that goal today? Good. Keep up.
Didn’t achieve this? Try again!
In the end, as long as you do not allow yourself to fall into the Swirl, and you keep an end goal to look up to as far as your eyes can see, you are going steadily well… and that by itself, is an achievement!
I should note that the more your goals — short or long term — have clarity, the better you’ll figure out how to manage your time, allocate your resources, knowledge and energy into realizing your “next great thing”.
Personally, that blog was actually an idea I had for so long, and the talked-about pillars of a “great” idea are what gave me the courage into realizing my idea. I am definitely not the first one to achieve this, but I am doing it…My Way. So If this blog post inspired you today, then I have achieved my goal, and time to work towards the next one 😎.
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