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Or is it? Even ignoring that the idea may be very original and still be a very small modification to existing products, validating or implementing an idea take

• sendos 16y ago
  Do you think that if a dentist comes up with an idea for a more efficient internal combustion engine, or comes up with the idea for intermittent windshield wipers, that the effort to validate or implement those two ideas is the same? Validating small improvements to existing products is usually much easier than validating fundamental changes to how things are done. (Even ignoring the fact that, when the idea comes from someone outside the field, if the idea is a fundamental change to how things are done, it has a much higher probability of being a crackpot case, than if the idea is a small modification to an existing product)
  • alok-g 16y ago
    Sure. Sure. Having an existing product gives you a framework to validate it, so makes things much easier. Yet, it is going to take more time and effort than thinking of the idea itself. Someone outside of the field may still come up with an original idea (with much higher chance of it being a crackpot case), but would have no easy means to validate it, whether it relates to an existing product or not.