Category: Creativity

Evaluating Product Ideas

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.”

Help me write a Story

I found this neat Ruby on Rails web app called Invent a Story. So I started a story with the word(s) National Enquirer. Basically you are given a few words to choose from and asked to write a sentence with it. Then other people are invited to add to the “story”. Here is my sentence.

Today I finally got fired from the National Enquirer.

SO go on over there and add to this web 2.0 exquisite corpse. Fun!