Evan Williams of Blogger, Odeo, and Twitter fame has a great blog post up called Will it fly? How to Evaluate a New Product Idea. Its actually helping me evaluate my ideas. Especially my business ideas. Check out his Ten Rules for Web Startups too.
Tractability
Question: How difficult will it be to launch a worthwhile version 1.0?Obviousness
Question: Is it clear why people should use it?Deepness
Question: How much value can you ultimately deliver?Wideness
Question: How many people may ultimately use it?Discoverability
Question: How will people learn about your product?Monetizability
Question: How hard will it be to extract the money?Personally Compelling
Question: Do you really want it to exist in the world?
I recommend you take this bit of advice too, “Be Wary Overgeneralized lists of business “rules” are not to be taken too literally. There are exceptions to everything.”
Brian C. Russell 