New blood

The Tandem rockstar group has been stewing in our own ideas for awhile. When you live with an idea for a period of time, you get comfortable with it. You stop looking at it from new angles. You, in a way, start believing your own hype, that your idea is the best it can be.

It's dangerous, because as soon as you present your ideas to others, they will see the value that you see, but they will also see ways that it could be better.

If you take your idea and build it and start showing it to prospective customers without letting people pick apart your ideas first, you'll probably get a couple sales. And then someone who sees what you are doing and has the means to improve on your idea will do it, and probably make more money than you.

Yesterday I had an all day strategy meeting on our new products. A new Rockstar is entering the fold, and getting his feedback on our product ideas made me see them in whole new ways. We're early enough in the process to easily incorporate his feedback. I'm reenergized about starting to talk about these products with customers. I think it'll be awhile before anyone could seriously challenge us, and I would be surprised if anyone could build a better mousetrap as quickly as we've been able to put together our products.

It's a critical step to get new eyes on your ideas. The more insightful feedback you can get early on, the more viable your idea is likely to be.