Seth Godin recently posted Hamster Burial Kits & 998 Other Business Ideas which hit my radar from many eager entrepreneurs.  Not so fast, ideas are only thoughts.  Without solid execution, the idea is worth nothing.  Want more proof?  Malcolm Gladwell’s New Yorker piece about “simultaneous discovery” provides a lot of historical background to support the theory of execution over ideation.  Below is a simple analysis to see what words are being used simultaneously to see if any insights can be gained from the ideas generated.

Let’s  start with the statement excerpted from the original post:

Ideas are a dime a dozen. The money is in the execution.

Need proof? For Seth Godin’s Alternative MBA program, this week the nine of us came up with 111 business ideas each. But ideas are only valuable when someone (like you) makes something happen.

5 Quick Thoughts

I only included important words by removing words like “a”, “the”, and the like from the complete list.

• “Service” was the most commonly used word (133 times) which makes me think about the balance of these two ideas
  • “Service” is a fine word for a high-level description, but it is now so generic that any relevant business case needs to put a unique spin on what ‘service’ means to get noticed
  • Or….services are so necessary to solving consumer problems that any new idea should have some service feature/component
• “iPhone” was used more than “food” and “phone”, though more people use (and search for!) “food” and “phone“s than use iPhones
• “Restaurant” cracked the top 100; anecdotally, I’ve heard that many restaurants fail
• “People” ranked really high (3rd after my filter) which says emphasizes the (obvious?) point that new ideas must not be fluff, they must relate to people
• “Podcast” (and its derivatives “podcasts”, “podcast)”) was only used 6 times…but it amazes me to see so many new content-rich podcasts around.  Simply put, I wonder how much time podcasting is worth, business wise

Statistics on Words

• 18,949 words - Total words describing 999 ideas
• 174 words – Most words in an idea
• 19.25 words – Average words/idea
• 2 words – least words in an idea

Top Words in an Idea

DISCLAIMER – The intention was to make this quick so I didn’t spend a tremendous amount of time worrying about what words to exclude/combine.  I’d appreciate constructive adjustments in the comments!

#14 – ‘service’ – 133 counts – (0.4%)

#16 – ‘company’ – 119 counts – (0.36%)

#18 – ‘people’ – 113 counts – (0.35%)

#22 – ‘Online’ – 78 counts – (0.24%)

#32 – ‘website’ – 59 counts – (0.19%)

#34 – ‘Get’ – 57 counts – (0.18%)

#44 – ‘site’ – 46 counts – (0.15%)

#46 – ‘business’ – 44 counts – (0.14%)

#49 – ‘etc.’ – 39 counts – (0.13%)

#57 – ‘store’ – 31 counts – (0.1%)

#60 – ‘Consulting’ – 30 counts – (0.1%)

#62 – ‘video’ – 29 counts – (0.1%)

#65 – ‘app’ – 28 counts – (0.09%)

#65 – ‘Create’ – 28 counts – (0.09%)

#65 – ‘Help’ – 28 counts – (0.09%)

#65 – ‘iPhone’ – 28 counts – (0.09%)

#71 – ‘digital’ – 27 counts – (0.09%)

#71 – ‘go’ – 27 counts – (0.09%)

#74 – ‘allows’ – 26 counts – (0.09%)

#74 – ‘book’ – 26 counts – (0.09%)

#74 – ‘way’ – 26 counts – (0.09%)

#77 – ‘based’ – 25 counts – (0.08%)

#77 – ‘school’ – 25 counts – (0.08%)

#77 – ‘want’ – 25 counts – (0.08%)

#81 – ‘local’ – 24 counts – (0.08%)

#82 – ‘one’ – 23 counts – (0.08%)

#84 – ‘find’ – 22 counts – (0.07%)

#84 – ‘kids’ – 22 counts – (0.07%)

#88 – ‘companies’ – 21 counts – (0.07%)

#88 – ‘food’ – 21 counts – (0.07%)

#92 – ‘best’ – 20 counts – (0.07%)

#92 – ‘car’ – 20 counts – (0.07%)

#92 – ‘home’ – 20 counts – (0.07%)

#92 – ‘phone’ – 20 counts – (0.07%)

#92 – ‘set’ – 20 counts – (0.07%)

#92 – ‘students’ – 20 counts – (0.07%)

#92 – ‘Users’ – 20 counts – (0.07%)

#100 – ‘don’t’ – 19 counts – (0.06%)

#100 – ‘good’ – 19 counts – (0.07%)

#100 – ‘more’ – 19 counts – (0.07%)

#100 – ‘new’ – 19 counts – (0.07%)

#100 – ‘restaurant’ – 19 counts – (0.07%)

#100 – ‘software’ – 19 counts – (0.07%)

#100 – ‘time’ – 19 counts – (0.07%)

Link to Data Files extracted from Seth Godin’s site

• Raw Data CSV
• Summary CSV