Iteration is the Key

All of us have ideas.  Some are good and some are not so good.  Those ideas do not always spring from youth.  Most ideas spring from filling a need.

When we identify that need, we seek an answer that we fill that void.  We try many things that sometimes go against the grain.  We try many things that are just variations of something we already do or use.  Then, maybe, we find something that looks like a possibility.

We take the possibility and work with it until we getting a working prototype.  That prototype sometimes called proof of concept maybe crude and unusable. However, it does prove that we can find a way to fill the need.

Never once is the first attempt good enough.  And that is what distinguishes the idea from just an idea to maybe this can be a product.  The product, if you get that far, must be continually refined and looked at.

So it seems that iteration of the end product is what differentiates this from the beginning of this process.  We must have much iteration in order for the product to fulfill this need.

So when you hear that someone has an idea, let them work on it.  Have them show you their iterations.  If the fail to be able to make iterations of this need they are trying to fulfill then maybe this product will not make it out the lab.