"Bro we should open a bar", don't be this guy
Somewhere right now a guy at a bar is making a stranger sign an NDA on a napkin. For an app idea. Just sit with that. That napkin is going in a drawer. The drawer is a graveyard. Quick tour. Exhibit A: bro we should open a bar Two beers in, you're suddenly a hospitality mogul. Picking a name. Arguing about taco night. By the time the check comes, the bar is already dead. It died of "let's talk about this again soon," which never happens. Exhibit B: bro we should start a band A guitar shows up at a party. Someone says "we should actually start something." One rehearsal happens. In a garage. A neighbor complains. The band dies before it has a name or a single original song. RIP. Exhibit C: the app idea, may it rest in your Notes app The big one. Open your Notes app, it's a cemetery. "App that reminds you to text people back." Dead. "Tinder but for gym buddies." Dead. These ideas didn't fail. They never even got born. Why none of these make it out alive The ideas aren't even bad. Some are genuinely good. The problem is ideas are free and easy to say out loud. Building one makes it real, and real things can fail in public with your name on them. Saying "we should open a bar" costs nothing. Actually opening one costs $400,000, a liquor license, and every Saturday for five years. Guess which one people actually do. Building also got way easier, which makes this worse. You don't need a technical cofounder anymore. You can describe an app to a chat box and watch a prototype show up before your coffee's cold. The wall that used to stop people is mostly gone. People are still standing where it used to be, out of habit. A small ceremony for the ones we lost HERE LIES: "the app idea I had in the shower" born: tuesday died: tuesday, when I got out of the shower HERE LIES: "our band" born: one guitar, one party died: one noise complaint HERE LIES: "the bar we were gonna open" born: 1:47am died: 1:48am, checked the bill Two graves that still have a heartbeat Here's the part nobody