Picture this:

1. I am approached by “John” who has been recommended to talk to me about his new venture – but it turns out he wants me to sign an NDA before he can discuss it. I refuse to sign unless he can give me an outline of what he is proposing, so we agree to meet at a cafe for coffee and a chat.
2. When he arrives, he explains his  venture is still at the idea stage – but it turns out he hasn’t done much research.
3. He has a manilla folder with him – which turns out to be empty, I’m not kidding!
4. He is convinced he is on a winner and doesn’t want advice, just investors – but it turns out I have to pay for the coffee as in his excitement he has forgotten his wallet.

This has happened to me more than once (more fool me). The problem is that everyone has some great product ideas, as well as some completely rubbish one. Only they can’t differentiate, they think all their ideas are good.

Since I try to get smarter as I get older, I now demand a high level overview to be sent to me in the mail, before I will commit to investing any time at all. However I also recently noticed a new service on the landscape, that specifically deals with peoples ideas for products.

Its called Quirky. What Quirky does is get you to to submit your idea to their community. The crowd then decides whether your idea has legs, and if so they they then get their paid team to evaluate the product, doing research, design, branding and engineering. If everything looks a go, they then manufacture and market your product.

If your idea doesn’t make it, it only costs you $10 to submit plus you get a whole lot of feedback.

If your idea does make it, you get paid, the crowd gets paid, and of course Quirky gets paid.

Its as close as I have seen to getting real life product validation, without you needing to invest. It could save a lot of time in coffee shop’s listening to people assert their idea is brilliant.