There's a specific feeling when you tell someone an idea and they immediately get it. They nod, they say "that's smart," they can already see it working. This feels like validation. It's actually a warning.

The problem isn't that everyone likes the idea. The problem is why they like it. They like it because it's legible - it fits a shape they already recognize. If you can explain something in one sentence and people immediately get it, the idea is made of pieces that already exist in their heads. Which means it's probably made of pieces that already exist in the world. Which means someone has tried it.

I built OnTheHouse - Apple Wallet loyalty cards for NYC bars. Everyone thought it was great. "Why doesn't this exist?" That question has an answer. It always has an answer.

The ideas that are actually new are hard to explain. People squint because you're pointing at something they don't have a pattern for yet. The discomfort in the conversation is the signal, not the problem.

And legible ideas are hard to kill. You can raise money because the pitch makes sense. You can find people to work on it because it sounds good. The idea stays alive not because it's working but because it's difficult to invalidate. You burn a year on something that was dead before you started.

Startups are a game of outliers. The only way to build something big is to be right about something most people don't see yet. Contrarian and correct. Everyone knows this.

But then you have an idea and you want people to like it. You want the nod, the "that's smart." It's an ego boost. Validation that you're onto something.

Which, if you think about it, is backwards. If the game is being contrarian and correct, then immediate validation is evidence you're not being contrarian. The ego boost is the warning sign. You're getting rewarded for having an idea that fits the shape of what people already believe - which is exactly the thing that doesn't work.

The biggest companies came from ideas that sounded wrong. Airbnb was strangers sleeping in your apartment. Uber was getting in a stranger's car. These don't make instant sense. They make you uncomfortable. The legible version is always a vitamin. A slight improvement on something that already exists. The illegible version is the thing that actually changes behavior. But the illegible version doesn't give you the ego boost. It gives you the squint.

So you have to work against your own wiring. The thing that feels like validation is a trap. The thing that feels like uncertainty is the signal.