The funny thing about great ideas – they are most often loved by the creator and completely misunderstood by those around him or her. Imagine Evan Williams trying to explain Twitter (www.twitter.com) in 2006 to people right before he went live with it. How many people do you think told him that a) they didn’t get it or, b) it was a terrible idea?

We’ve already established that passion for the project is one of the most important factors in determining whether or not there is going to be a success or fail. People with whom you share your idea are far less likely to have the same passion for the project that you have. After all, you have come up with this idea in what you would describe as nothing less than a flash of brilliance. In fact, you have probably spent many hours thinking about this one thing; how you would create it, how it will work, and, most importantly, why people will love it. Those around you with whom you plan on sharing this idea have not, and therefore won’t care and won’t get it.

The single most dangerous thing you can do when you have a brilliant idea for some new project is to ask just one person. Overcoming the gap of single denial is treacherous and terribly important for any new venture to see the light of day. After all, you are in love with this idea, but, like most new entrepreneurs, you are probably feeling terribly self-conscious about the notion that somehow you are going to have this great idea that no one else has had. Further, you will have doubts about your ability to execute against it. It’s very easy, then, for a would-be entrepreneur to become a wayward one by virtue of the fact that they asked but one person what they thought of their idea.

The reason people will crap on your idea, in my opinion, is that most people don’t like change. They don’t like things to be different than what they would consider the status quo. The notion of a friend of theirs stepping out on their own, for most people, is just too hard to imagine. Some of us are lucky to have friends or colleagues who are entrepreneurs, and so they understand. However, for the vast majority of the population, they see this change as a risk. People don’t like risk. They like knowing that a paycheck is coming every two weeks and that someone is going to be providing their benefits. They don’t like the idea that those securities go away, and they certainly don’t like new things. Not unless the masses tell them that they need to get this thing. When first presented with this new idea, however, they won’t get it, and in fact will do whatever they can to dissuade you from following a path that would lead to you endeavoring to create it.

I remember one day in college when I had just returned from my first summer internship with Microsoft. I met my best friend during that internship, and to this day I bring up this story any time he decides to shit on one of my ideas. The year was 1994, and the web was very, very new. Netscape hadn’t come out. Mosaic was the first browser, and for those of us nerds in college, we knew about this coming tidal wave. I can still remember the first day I used Mosaic. I knew right then that my world had just changed.

One afternoon we were in the campus store looking at books, and I uttered the single infamous question. Standing there, staring at books about technology, I thought to myself how surprising it was that there were so few books about the Internet. It’s a hard image to conjure, for sure, but I assure you, there once was a time when there were virtually no books about the Internet. I turned to Alex and said, “You know what would be cool for us to do? We should write a book about how to use the Internet for college kids.” I don’t remember his exact words, but the way I tell the story he turned to me and said, “That’s the stupidest idea I have ever heard. Who would buy such a book?”

To set context, this was a time when there was actually a product called, I’m not kidding, “Internet in a Box.”

 Figure – Internet in a Box Product Image

This is back when getting online was very challenging, and there was nothing, and I mean nothing that was readily available for the average Joe. So in my mind, the idea of a book about how to use the Internet for college students made tons of sense. I made the mistake of testing the idea on one college student. He wasn’t my target market, mind you, since Alex easily outclassed me on the technical nerd scale. Asking him made no sense. I did what most of you will do, however, in that I didn’t seek market research from my target market; I didn’t verify that there was in fact a market. Alas, I simply asked one friend. Since I think he’s pretty much one of the smartest people I know, I figured he must be right, and moved on.

There’s no guarantee that had I pursued that venture that I would have had any success, but the market for Internet and technology related books certainly exploded through the mid to late 90s on into the new century. I gave up too early because of my sample size of one.

Here’s another great example of not letting a sample size of one influence your decisions. I had a good friend of mine in college go to Stanford for his MBA. This friend and I had spent many hours working on labs and project teams together in college, and we both held each other in very high regard. So it was with great skepticism that I listened to him tell me about how he was going to start a new business.

It’s so clear in my mind, I remember the exact location. We were sitting in Mel’s Dinner in San Francisco, with another friend of ours, also a Stanford MBA student. Jeff was sharing this idea for a new company he was going to start. He was so excited about it, but I couldn’t be dissuaded from my advice. I said, simply, that bailing on his second year of business school to pursue this company idea was insane. What would happen if he failed? At least if he had the MBA, he would have that as a fallback position. Besides, based on the idea as I understood it, eBay would pound him into the ground so fast that he wouldn’t stand a chance.

At this point, I had been out of business school for a few years and was convinced (COVINCED!) that having the MBA was responsible for opening doors to greater opportunities. So I told him, in no uncertain terms, that making this decision was a huge mistake. I didn’t make much of an impression. Jeff went on to start a company called Liquid Seats, later renamed to StubHub. eBay come along some years later and purchased that company for $310 million. I give myself an epic fail on that one.

The moral? Most people are not going to share your same level of excitement or passion for your project. They will bring their own fears or prejudices into any feedback they give you, and that feedback will most likely be negative. Further, if you are going to spend time sharing your idea, make sure that you share it with more than one person, lest you get dissuaded too easily. Last, make sure you share that idea with people who have actually gone out on their own, and not people who are office dwellers without a hint of entrepreneurial spirit in their body.