I think there's probably something here related to timing. You want to be early enough that most people think what you're tackling isn't feasible (and therefore

I think there's probably something here related to timing. You want to be early enough that most people think what you're tackling isn't feasible (and therefore low competition) but not so early that it's impossible to capitalize a business that can go after the problem. In these cases, the idea being "bad" is more about people thinking you'r overly optimistic rather than people thinking it's not something that's useful.