But do you intend to put in funds so that your co-founders have a salary at the outset? That would concern me (even though there are legal reasons to actually do that very thing). The willingness to take the risk of foregoing salary and stability to make a run at something will tell you 2 things about co-founders: 1) They are risk takers (which, to a reasonable extent, is something you want); and 2) they believe in the idea. Both of those things go away when you throw money on the table on day 1.

My take on this - look for ideas and potential co-founders without putting the money thing out there at the outset. You want to have a co-founding team that you trust and who trust you, not a team that's attracted to you for your money. The attraction of instant funding can easily cloud your potential co-founders' judgment as to whether you folks could all work well as a team. That could be a potential disaster.

Some instant funding will give you a leg up. But it can't make up for a mismatched founding team.

What you do need are some customers. These are people ideally with money who have pain points that can be solved with engineering, and those people are willing to pay a profitable price for that solution.

Ideas have absolutely no value. If you don't have an unfair advantage when accessing a market (like having worked in a certain industry, having family contacts that will buy your product, etc.) then you shouldn't enter it.

You should also assume that any money you put into bootstrapping is being burned in a furnace, because more than 99% of startups fail. This money should be completely disposable, not your retirement fund or anything you need.

Also, I do disagree with your statement that ideas have absolutely no value. That's a categorical assertion. Ideas have a lot of value- I have personal experience with monetizing good ideas. I do agree that ideas are only one of the inputs and the details of the execution matter just as much

First, they're never new. Someone has already had your idea and, most likely, beaten you to the market with that idea. If they haven't, it's probably a bad idea. First movers have a disadvantage.

Second, ideas should be disposable. If you have an idea and the market won't bite, you need to throw away that idea immediately. Getting attached to ideas kills more startups than anything else.

There's a good reason you can't protect a business idea in the US, the way you can protect an invention or a novel. You can, however, protect a process -- i.e. execution.

I'll give you some honest feedback, which I hope will lead you to a more targeted pitch to engineers:

I wouldn't work with you because you're proposing an idea-first approach, and, as an engineer, I don't need you. I have lots of ideas, and I can build the product myself.

The value of a non-technical person in an early-stage startup is closing sales, ideally before the product is built. If you can't come to me and say, "I have 10 customers who will buy a product that solves [x] problem for around $[y]," then it doesn't make sense for me to work with you.

1. https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/236605

2. https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-worth-value-of-an-idea-for...

3. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jjcolao/2013/04/03/your-idea-is...

Also, online posts talking about how ideas are worthless are just silly. Of course, if you want to sell an idea, that by itself will not fetch any money. But in order to execute, you have to decide what you are going to work on first. At no point did I propose pulling this decision out of nowhere. I am interested in talking to potential collaborators who are interested in brainstorming together. Ideally, it would be engineers who are secure enough ( like me ) from previous success, such that they are not worried about the risk of working on something new

> I am also not proposing an idea first approach

Then why do you want to brainstorm? Why do you say the only two things you need are engineers and an idea?

I want to brainstorm because I am trying to choose what to work on next. I am not going to choose randomly. I am not a random person posting on this site. I've already done big things successfully and want to do more big things even more successfully in the future :)

Also, I do want to discuss. I don't want to discuss whether ideas are worthless ( I have monetized ideas before quite successfully ). I want to discuss the ideas themselves :)