Ideas "The best way to have a good idea, is to have lots of ideas" Linus Pauling. There are ways of finding ideas ( idea generation ) and ways of selecting the best ideas ( idea screening ). Good ideas are not always good opportunities. There is often a "window of opportunity" for a good idea. Ideas are collected from end users, employees. One study of where ideas came from was taken from The Origins of Entrepreneurship John Case INC June 1989 study of 500 fastest growing companies Work activity 47% Improving an existing product/service 15% Identifying an unfilled niche 11% Other sources 16% Idea screening uses different techniques to assess the viability of the idea. This work is taken from my Masters Thesis. The problem of picking winners is that each screening technique has blindspots. The following list are the main selection techniques. Checklist Weighted checklist Economic measures (ROI) Other Staged Stage-Gate