It’s funny how much an idea can change over time. If you examine a few companies, you’ll discover how different their initial business idea is from what they’re currently doing. Microsoft, Google, PayPal, Apple — for some, their ideas evolve, while for others, it changes dramatically.

We started our project a couple months ago with one idea. Since then, we have gone through about a half dozen iterative changes. I say iterative because we didn’t go through drafts of ideas, but rather continually evolve our current one. Once we felt we had something, we started work on implementing it. (That’s a key point. If you don’t make something of your concepts, you’ll never truly realize its shortcomings.) Along the way, other issues arose that made us think, How do we address this? Or even, Wouldn’t it be better if we concentrated on this?

Our ideas are never truly discarded. Having them in the first place must give them some merit, right? Instead, we have just refined our focus and we are much better for it. One of the coolest things about this is that a single evening with our laptops and a couple beers will produce some of our best brainstorming sessions. Substitute those casual nights for completely focused work weeks and I’m excited about where else we can take this. Our objective has always stayed the same (create something of value), and that’s why our ideas are always evolving. As long as we maintain focus (i.e. no scattered, swiss-army-knife products), there’s nothing wrong with an idea in flux.