No idea is bad. Your scale to measure success matters. If you are so particular about the outcome then the reverse works better. Don’t choose an idea and try hard fitting into an outcome. Identify the expected outcomes and that gives you the action plan and that zero in an idea

Some entrepreneurs and investors blame the business idea when their expected outcome is different. This happens when you fail to seek feedback from true customers/users. The true customer is ruthless and they don’t sugarcoat. If you want to identify the true customer and that’s effortless. The one who is ready to pay for your service is the true customer. The one who pays his hard-earned money knows what is your idea deserves it. S(h)e express their joy and unhappiness without sugarcoating. Be happy if you happened to have critics at an early stage. They are helping you to shape up your idea, they are helping to contain your losses.

Speculated growth is a trap and that would happen when the sale happens due to the face value. Many times, friendship or relationship would compel people to buy. Please remember, they are to your customers. They are dead weight and a misguide (you may choose better term if your ego hurts)

Easiest benchmarking to confirm the worthiness of your idea would be the count on repeated customer and the cause of it. The dollar in vs dollar out is a different problem and sometimes that has nothing to do with the idea.

All ideas need not be commercially successful. Need to realize, Acceptability and affordability are different terms. A product/solution/service the user may like it but that doesn’t mean he would buy it. Affordability could be one of the reasons for it.

Every idea has bare minimum one supporter and that’s the person who owns it. Isn’t it?