IWYS – Getting ideas off your chest

Let me start off  by saying I’m jealous of  IWYS (iwearyourshirt.com).  I wish I had thought of this idea. Not that I haven’t had good ideas of my own, but I do envy some of the stuff people like Jason and Evan come up with these days.

Everyone has ideas.  Some are great, and some really suck.  It’s easy to envy ideas that others have.

It’s also easy to tell people that their ideas are cool or “appealing”.

Many cultures make it almost impossible to react honestly to even obviously bad ideas.  The urge to be polite often overcomes our true feelings even when we are dealing with complete strangers.  Go to any networking event and people you have never met will listen to your ideas and give you feedback. Often they will try to “help” out by telling you that your idea is really fantastic.  Maybe they are hoping you’ll buy all of your idea admirers a drink but sometimes, well, you can’t take everything at face value.

It’s not that they are trying to be dishonest; it’s that we don’t always ask the right questions. It’s easy to get comments, retweets and generic feedback on new ideas and concepts. What’s harder is getting feedback that goes beyond asking others if they “like it” to begin the process of validating the market potential of an idea.   Validating market potential can mean the difference between an idea that’s “cool” and an idea that could make you the next Bill Gates or Mark Cuban (or Jason Sadler).

As you read this post, you’ve probably already thought up a least one new idea. What’s it worth? Does it have true market potential? Want to find out?

To celebrate Aperio’s day on IWYS, comment on this blog post and one lucky person (chosen at random) will win the following:

An all-expenses paid, full scale market validation study crafted just for your idea.  You bring the concept, and Aperio Insights will:

• Craft an expertly written survey designed to validate market potential
• Launch the survey among a national panel of U.S. consumers
• Analyze the data and run some fancy statistics
• Create high-level charts/graphs
• Discuss the results with you (Skype/WebEx or you are welcome to come to Dallas)

We’ve also created a white paper called Validating Market Potential. You can find it on our site here

As I mentioned earlier, I’m a bit jealous of Jason and Evan. Not because I really want to wear your shirt but because I’ll bet that IWYS allows them to have the kind of experiences that generate LOTS of new ideas worth exploring. I’m willing to bet they have an idea or two that could use some research.

Jason and Evan – come up with an idea and we’ll run it through the Aperio Insights gauntlet to see if flies or flops.  The only catch for you guys — agree to share the results with your IWYS readers regardless of the outcome.