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Is there something before hypotesis tests, MVP or market research that could apply in this case?
I appreciate any literature recommendation on that.
Thanks!
Obviously this works better for some categories of ideas than others; if your idea is innovative and unique, the fact that nobody is searching for it doesn't necessarily mean anything. On the other hand, few people searching for "royalty-free polka music" is probably a good indicator of a not-very-valuable idea...
That's a problem I'd love to have! I feel like I don't come up with ideas very often, and when I do they don't seem to be very good, feasible, or original.
When evaluating viability you want to ask yourself questions like "Is there really a market for this?", "Would this substantially improve the process of doing X?", "Am I creating a new market here?", "Is this an incremental improvement to an existing product or process or am I adding exponential value?", "Are there companies currently in a position to compete?", "Could an established player in this space do this easily and push me out of the market?", and ultimately: "Would I use this? Regularly?".
Difficulty is fairly obvious and deals with the question of energy in, and whether it's truly feasible for you to pull something like this off in a reasonable timeframe, given your resources at hand.
ROI is the ultimate question that asks "What's the upside?", "Is it really going to be worth my time to solve this problem?", "For the time (money) I invest in building this, is it going to pay out more than the other projects I could have been working on?" (opportunity costs).
Good luck!
2) Do home work, search for the best current way to solve the problem.
3) scale matters, a jet engine was a big improvement over a propeller engine. Focus on big ideas
Reference - this is how someone who has PhD is taught to evaluate an idea. http://www.sce.carleton.ca/faculty/chinneck/thesis.html
4) Einstein was well known for saying that he had so few good ideas, he did not need to write them down. He had learned how to measure the value of an idea.
As a side note, I also feel very good ideas, ideas that offer at least 100% ROI are so rare that you will know when you have one. 100% ROI is a tough call, but I would only spend time on ideas that offer 100+% ROI.
If you look at many of the most successful companies, many solve a problem people already had and the solution is either simpler or cheaper than existing solutions rather than being the first to solve a problem. Google wasn't the first search engine. Craigslist didn't invent classifieds. EBay didn't invent auctions. What they all did was solve a problem more simply and cheaply than existing solutions.
If you look at many of the most successful companies, many solve a problem people already had and the solution is either simpler or cheaper than existing solutions rather than being the first to solve a problem. Google wasn't the first search engine. Craigslist didn't invent classifieds. EBay didn't invent auctions. What they all did was solve a problem more simply and cheaply than existing solutions.
Good points! These arguments leads us to the point that we don't need to give up on some idea just because it is too simple or is something that already exists in the market. Although sometimes it's really hard to go on over some idea that already has a strong and stablished competitor in the market.
Some of the best advice for you question is from Paul Graham: http://paulgraham.com/startupideas.html