Biggest telltale sign an idea is bad prior to validation stage?

When you're just brainstorming ideas, what are some signs that an idea should be scrapped right away before even spending time trying to validate it?

Ideas Validation

asked Mar 28 '14 at 16:58

Edward Burton
7 points

There is a small contradiction in a questions - signs of a BAD idea and idea that should be scrapped are not the same thing. – Webbie 10 years ago

2 Answers

Some signs you might want to pass on an idea:

1. There are no competitors.
If your problem doesn't have a successful competitor, really evaluate the idea. There is no better signal that an idea is worth doing than a competitor who is already making money from it.

2. Costs to acquire customers will be high.
You can often get a sense of this by looking at the average CPC bids in Google Adwords.

3. Long sales cycle
It's very hard to get a bootstrapped startup off the ground that has to deal with long sales cycles. SaaS products targeting large enterprise clients or government agencies fit this profile.

answered Mar 28 '14 at 18:57

Lawrence Farwell
47 points

2

I would disagree with 1. 1. assumes no-one participating on Bright Journey would ever come up with a paradigm changing idea. That cannot possibly be true. We are not at the end of paradigm innovation. Another (I can find the link - in my favourite links) excellent article about good start-up ideas definitely mentioned leading-edge ideas as very valid and very good. – Nicolaas Smith 10 years ago
Here´s the link to the article: http://paulgraham.com/startupideas.html#f2n – Nicolaas Smith 10 years ago
1

From the article: "The very best startup ideas tend to have three things in common: they're something the founders themselves want, that they themselves can build, and that few others realize are worth doing. Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo, Google, and Facebook all began this way." "that few others realize are worth doing." = maybe very few or no competitors in the beginning. – Nicolaas Smith 10 years ago
Agree with Nicolas on #1. New markets are still created these days, so there aren't always competitors for great ideas. – Webbie 10 years ago

I am going to answer a question about when to decide to scrap an idea.

1. If you discover that someone is already successfully solving the problem. This is often the most common reason people give up on ideas since you have to check for competition before moving to customer validation. A lot of ideas are not original, even if they seem so to us. If you think you can improve on execution, or be different in some meaningful to customers way you can still pursue the idea, at least through validation stage.

2. If you discover that the problem is temporary and is poised to be solved by market trends or changes in industry practices or law very soon.

3. In B2B space, if you research prospective clients and discover that the companies or even the industry in general is in decline or being disrupted (not related to your idea). In B2C, if you realize that consumers are replacing whatever you want to improve with something else completely.

answered Mar 28 '14 at 18:41

Webbie
2,835 points

I would argue against the first point. I think it's the opposite -- you might want to scrap an idea if there is *no one* successful solving that problem. A successful competitor is a pretty big signal that the idea is worth doing. – Lawrence Farwell 10 years ago
1

@Lawrence - to create an identical product to compete just on price is not a great path for a brand new startup, and a very risky one (competitor can always drop price too). I did say that if you think you can improve on the solution or be different in some way that matters to customers you should pursue it. – Webbie 10 years ago