This guest post is written by Glen Stansberry of LifeDev.net.

When it comes to working for yourself, the step up from freelancing to starting a larger business is often a short one. Many a freelancer has used the work at home lifestyle, the flexibility and the cash flow of contract work to fund larger enterprises.

Of course one of the biggest joys of being a freelancing entrepreneur is the chance to develop your own ideas. By working on them yourself, you shape how they look, feel and grow over time. I can’t think of a much better feeling than taking an abstract idea and turning it into something real and useful. It. is. Awesome.

Yet, because of this close relationship, you’re also married to your ideas. When they’re successful, you take the accolades. When they suck, you take the blame. The only way they’ll mature and grow like you envisioned is if you implement and develop them. You can be the best vision-caster in the history of business, but you’ll never get the whole idea across to whoever works on your project.

Yet for some reason there are still businesses that haven’t quite figured this concept out. It never ceases to amaze me in the web world how companies can go and acquire a website, and expect it to develop and mature just as it had before the acquisition. This never seems to happen. Over time the acquired site usually become stagnant or falls apart, with the purchaser wondering why his perfectly-sound investment has gone belly-up. Never mind that the culture of the company has drastically changed, or that different people are now working on it. It’s still the same product, right?

Wrong.

Once you transfer ownership of the idea, there is less motivation to see it finished successfully. If it’s not your baby anymore, how can you care for it like a child? You can’t be as motivated to feed it or change it’s messy diaper every now and again (to go along with the terrible parent/child analogy).

Ideas aren’t something that transfer with the sale of a company. Yes, they technically can take the rights of the idea, but they’ll never be able to implement it like you can. Ideas can’t even fully transfer between people. Why do you think they’re not called USdeas or WEdeas?

The Thing to Remember

The only way a good idea is going to be implemented well is if the originator of the idea (you) carries it out. You’re the one with the passion. You’ve got the blueprint in your head. Shoot, it doesn’t even really matter if other people don’t understand your idea. Just start planning and slowly implementing it, and people will start to catch on. Don’t sweat it if other people don’t fully appreciate or even like the idea at first. It usually takes a long time before truly revolutionary ideas start to take hold anyway.

The worst thing an entrepreneur can do is to let someone else take over the development of his/her idea. There’s nothing wrong with collaboration to help develop or even further the concept, but the core idea should remain with the originator. You wouldn’t let someone else take your baby, would you? Yeah, neither would I