My new favorite that I use now almost immediately is simply, "If I were to give the core product away absolutely free, would people take it? If so, how enthusia

My new favorite that I use now almost immediately is simply, "If I were to give the core product away absolutely free, would people take it? If so, how enthusiastic would they be about getting it?" It sounds ridiculous, but I have found it brings a quick dose of reality to ideas that I come up with on a whim that are subject to my own bias. For a grossly simple example, if I were to start a restaurant, there is a safe bet that it COULD be successful because anybody would accept food if it were given away for free, especially if it were of high quality. The rest of the process of building a successful restaurant is fairly complicated, but without a product people would be happy to receive for free, there is no business. The level of enthusiasm the people show for the core product is a good indicator of how much they would pay. Contrast that with a lot of software/internet businesses and that question gets very murky. With a lot of the sites that I start work on I think "if I offered this product for free, would people be excited to get it?" and very often I realize my idea, while perhaps creative, just isn't solving a real need.