Our world is moving faster than ever with the availability of the Internet. That brilliant idea of yours which you’ve mentioned to me few days ago, might already exist in this world – maybe not in your country but elsewhere. Or maybe you just came out with this profitable and simple business idea during your toilet break (you’ll be surprised how many people actually get their idea this way) 2 hours ago…..the same time someone else across the globe thought of something similar. The difference? The person started to work on it immediately while you are still convincing yourselves that it is not that good an idea and are reluctant to start.

The thing is, you are not alone with good business ideas. There are a lot of people with that talent and knowledge all over the world and they might have stronger will power and better access to resources than you do. But that doesn’t mean you are bound to fail, unlike what most people like to think.

Whenever I have an idea, I will talk to my friends and all of them (except for few rare ones) will say “The idea so normal, someone must have done it already” or a plain “It’s not going to work”. But I do wonder, if you don’t try, how do you know it’s not going to work? Nobody knows Facebook is going to be such a big hit, since the idea is quite simple. So don’t look down on that simple idea of yours even though everyone else is. Give it a try but start with something simple.

The message I want to bring out here is, we do have talented people in Malaysia and I have no doubt about that. The problem is that we too have many naysayers in this country. People all around us will tell us this and that idea will not  work, or someone else has already done it. What you can do is to try Google for it and if it’s not there, means it’s most probably something new or not widely known (yet). What’s next? Find some friends and start working on it. If you’re alone, you can still do it albeit at a slower pace.

The morale of the story here is….if you think you have a brilliant idea, start working on it immediately and don’t wait. Because every hour you spend waiting will increase the likelihood that your idea will be snatched by someone else.

p/s…. this is also a message for myself. I used to have ideas similar to SecondLife, Quicken and Mint.com, but I hesitated. In the end, someone else implemented those ideas before I even start my engine. Since then, I’ve told myself to try my best to start on something ASAP if I feel that something is going to be useful to other people.