You’re not the first person to come up with that idea.

I’m a little sick of the narcissism involved when business people (myself included) get it in their heads that they’ve come up with an idea that hasn’t occurred to anyone else on the face of the planet. News flash: there are over seven billion people in the world, and ideas come a dime a dozen. You are not the first person to come up with that “brilliant” idea.

The difference between engineers and businesspeople is that good engineers come up with new ideas. Good businesspeople know there is no such thing as a new idea. They take an old idea, rehash it for new market opportunities, and execute brilliantly.

Maybe that’s why engineers make better entrepreneurs than businesspeople. Bright engineers can come up with Thunder Lizard technologies that completely shift consumer behaviour, while businesspeople are stuck trying to find opportunities in existing industries. So either you get good at coming up with something that doesn’t even exist yet or you know the market inside out so you can capitalize on their needs better than the next guy.