[pincubator]

That's why whenever I get a neat idea (after "Oh, I can't believe I've never seen this kind of app around, it would be awesome to build it!" moments) I always do an extensive market research. It helps with two things:

1) You don't get disappointed that much to see others also have thought of it before (comparing to the shocking moment of discovering that someone else has already done it better by the time you are almost finishing your product). 2) It helps me to look/analyze what my kind of different ideas my competitors have thought about the product. If they have a crappier version of what I have in mind, then I am happy to see that there is an actual potential to beat them. If they are in a far better condition, then I force myself to think "what else could be added to this". If there is not much idea I can extent the product into, usually I give up since there is not much point of wasting time.