I love brainstorming on startup ideas with other founders. It is easy to stay in your own head and not be challenged on your ideas. Finding people who will not just say yes, but really push your thinking is invaluable. Furthermore, some recent conversations highlighted additional connections that can be made only when you share your ideas.

Sharing ideas through big distribution

I recently received a blog email from an entrepreneur/investor that shared a list of ideas he liked but didn’t necessarily have the time to go start. From that list, I was able to share with him a company working on one of the ideas, as well as that in our Studio we were actively researching another of the ideas on the list. Without this email, we would never have made that connection or have been able to discuss the idea to further our understanding.

Sharing ideas in smaller settings

In our office at Atlanta Tech Village we have printed out on our wall one pagers for several of our Studio ideas, as well as a longer list of ideas we want to work on. It always amazes me the number of people who see that list and get energized knowing someone else is interested in the same idea. It spawns many further conversations on some of the ideas.

Sharing ideas 1-1

I also recently was discussing my thoughts with an entrepreneur on a market I really liked given my experiences with how bad the current solutions were. He was able to connect me to another entrepreneur who also was exploring the space, and we were able to compare notes to further our thinking.

In most circumstances, I am a huge fan of sharing ideas versus hiding in stealth mode. The sooner you can begin the many pivots and iterations required to create a successful startup the better. Having more dialogue early on can better shape that idea before you start building something nobody wants.