So this is a common hurdle in innovation. Everyone, including university researchers, faces this same conundrum. The best path to a solution is iteration: yo

So this is a common hurdle in innovation. Everyone, including university researchers, faces this same conundrum. The best path to a solution is iteration: you build a small prototype, and you demonstrate it. Sometimes this is convincing enough to get a little money. Then, you use that money to build a better prototype and some performance data and you demonstrate some more. Maybe you convince someone to give you a bit more money. And this process continues until your prototype starts to look like something that could actually become a product. Now you can start to gather market interest data with serious specifications. Now you will get a serious look from investors. TL;DR it’s an iterative process