Blog 81 – The Only Way To Come Up With Great Ideas

Where do great ideas come from?

In the book Originals, thought leader and Wharton Professor, Adam Grant says it best, “To be original, you have to generate more ideas.”

Quality vs Quantity has often proved to be a debate for entrepreneurs. But what comes first?

I’d argue that quantity drives quality. It becomes a pure volume play. The more you produce, the higher the chances you produce a hit.

This can be seen with the great inventors, musicians and producers of our time. While we all know about the light bulb and the camera, Thomas Edison had 1,093 total patents of many other inventions that failed.

Mozart produced over 626 pieces of music. Yet only a handful became hits and recognizable.

Even Walt Disney failed at first with many of his film productions. While Snow White was a runaway success, Pinocchio and Fantasia were commercial failures at first. They almost shut down the Disney studio. But Walt kept producing new and innovative productions.

Even today, pop musician Andy Grammar wrote over 100 songs for his most recent album. His biggest hit “Honey, Im Good” was the 101st song he wrote for the album.

The most extreme example is Pixar who will look at 4,000 scripts before picking their new movie.

The key is to keep producing. Keep creating. Keep building. And then putting it out there.

The more ideas the better. Many will fail.
But people won’t remember the failures.

They will remember the successes.