To come up with a really good idea for our next product or service, we cannot simply go to Starbucks and dream up an idea over coffee. We need to conduct research in a few levels:

1) Talk to customers to understand their challenges and pains

2) Google around, hang out at forums to find out what are already in the market.

3) If we can see a way that customers are unhappy with what’s existing in the market, and we believe we can create an improved version, we have a viable idea. The research at this level is: how do we pull together the resources to make the idea work without making a loss.