[xyzzy21]

Yep!

You have to learn how and when to KILL YOUR CHILDREN (your ideas)!

I typically come up with a dozen ideas a week - most of them don't pass hurdles of basic physics or economics, or once you research "the market" you discover there isn't one. So you plunge a knife into the idea and kill it quick. You have to learn how to do this. I do minimally document them and then file them away, however. Things can change.

Then you absolutely may need to spend YEARS at the few that survive. But you are always checking, setting hurdles and milestones and being ready to kill off the idea that doesn't have any more to work.

Or you discover YOU aren't the one who can take through that jungle and then you have to decide what to do about that. Sometimes you find someone who can and take a minority venture stake in what they can do with it. Sometimes you have to wait until ideas or technologies become more mature. Or you need to put it on the back burner as you can accumulate more capital to "do it right".

You do need an incumbent in most cases to prove the market exists but you want to shy away from the "popular" products because of high competition you won't likely match.