Are you killing your billion dollar ideas??

Negative questions are too powerful.

What if people upload porn? Youtube dies there
Why will people submit links and vote for them when they don’t get anything in return? death of digg
How will you ever monetize search while microsoft and yahoo have not managed it? google dies there
Do you think there is a market for maybe 10 people for PC? death of microsoft

You see the power of negative questions. It is too easy to think of 10 reasons why a startup will fail. Invariably while starting up, you have not figured out answers to all the questions. That is why you need years to grow up, to solve those questions, to improve your product.

Shoul I avoid discussing an idea with the team at the initial stage?
Not at all. Discussion will help you to look at the ideas from various angles and bring out enhancements. You will need the support of your partners to implement the idea as well.

What is the way out then?
Make the team understand that you have not found answers to all possible questions. There will be questions that will remain unanswered at the end of the discussion. The list above may be helpful as well

Start with few basic questions only. Do people need the product. Keep the detailed questions for later, once they have reached a certain stage.

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