I have been working on my next startup (#5, but who is counting?), and we are vetting through a number of ideas and aspects of the new company's offerings.  So true to my own writings, I was out in the marketplace meeting with potential customers.  We asked a lot of questions around the idea we had, trying to find "market pain" to sell against.  What did we hear?  Nothing.  Crickets.  Silence.  We took the questioning down another path, working different aspects of the business and product concept.  Again, nothing but crickets.  A call to a second prospective customer yielded identical results.  Ouch.

Was this a problem?  Not really.  First of all, we were investigating just one aspect of the business idea, and we had a lot more to work with.  But more importantly, it was not a problem because it avoided a much larger problem - spending time and cash on  loser idea.  We stopped pursuing the angle entirely. 

Only a few weeks later did we find out that a short while ago a company in New York was funded to create the exact product/service idea that we were market testing and they failed to get any traction - complete failure.

My question is this:  did someone at this company think they new better than the marketplace and their potential customers?  Sure, that can sometimes happen with game-changing ideas, but in 99% of the cases, when the marketplace responds with the sound of silence, it's probably best to go back to the drawing board and rethink your idea.  Maybe it needs just a tweak and a repositioning, and maybe it needs to go out with the afternoon trash.  But going to market in the face of clear rejection will not likely be overcome through sheer persuasion and sales skills.

Diligence pays, it really does.