What I found is with texting and emailing is that people get distracted and you aren't getting their full attention, if at all -- very easy for them to ignore y

What I found is with texting and emailing is that people get distracted and you aren't getting their full attention, if at all -- very easy for them to ignore you or drop you into spam. You need peoples focus to be able to talk through things rapid style, back and forth. The issue with phone calls generally that I've had is you are not a priority because you aren't physically in front of them so they will quickly dump a pre-sales type call and may never get back to you again or tell their staff to put you on eternal ignore (fun times). I do think with Covid using video has become so much more natural you could use that and keep peoples focus better. But for me I always found that you are the least important person they are talking to until you show them you are worth talking to. Sounds harsh but sales sucks for that, and pre-sales exploration (e.g. business dev) can be even harder at first. So a lot of times being in person is the best way I've found, maybe others have found other ways. FWIW, I've used all kinds of ways to get peoples attention as well, buying them lunch, sending lunch to their team in exchange for an hour of their time etc. I've found if you give them something people feel more obligated to give you their dedicated time, so it can help, and if you have mobility restrictions it might be worth experimenting here. As for most of the ideas, most boil down to who the clients would be, what the cost to develop is, what they would be willing to pay and how much support and on-going maintenance it would take to make it profitable. Some combination of those is the root cause most stay as an idea until there is some situation that can show a path forward. One of my personal biggest mistakes I had to overcome was I would create a product and not consider the training, maintenance and support costs early on. To a certain point that is ok, especially if you have funding, but if bootstrapped it can be a much larger factor in your plan (especially if you dislike doing support). With scale/funding you can bring those costs in line pretty quick as you grow but if you are bootstrapped it can be much harder.