We’ve all been there – you have a “million dollar idea” that you’re sure will make you rich quick. You excitedly tell your friends about your genius plan to develop an app that delivers avocado toast or start a company that rents out dogs for cuddling. They smile and nod politely. But deep down you know even they think your idea kinda sucks.

So how do you actually come up with decent business ideas that have a real shot at success? The key is learning how to brainstorm properly and then validate your ideas before dumping a ton of time and money into them. Do that and you’ll have a much better chance of hitting on something worthwhile.

Here’s a step-by-step process that can help you refine your initial idea and make sure it’s something people actually want.

The “ IDGO” Method

IDGO stands for Ideate, Discuss, Gather, and Operate. Let me walk through what each step entails:

Ideate: This starting point for everyone looking to build a business is figuring out what problems you enjoy solving. Think about what gets you fired up or the issues you complain about most. Start a running list of problems you encounter in your daily life, and don’t self-censor. Capture any problem, annoyance, or frustration that comes to mind no matter how silly it may seem at first. Over several days or weeks, review your list and identify 1 or 2 pressing problems you enjoy thinking about solving. Then begin ideating business solutions for those customer problems, letting your imagination run wild. Write down any and all ideas without judging them at this stage – you never know what kernel of an idea could turn into something great with more testing and iteration.

Discuss: Once you’ve narrowed down your customer problem and ideated some initial solutions ideas, start discussing them with trusted people around you. Talk to friends who know you well, chat with your teachers or professors to get their take, run ideas by your parents or siblings. Ask if they find the problem deeply frustrating, if they would pay for a solution, and listen to their suggestions. If multiple people in your target demographic light up with excitement about your concept, it’s a good sign you’re onto something.

Gather: Now it’s time to create what’s called a “minimum viable product” (MVP) – a basic representation of your product that allows real potential users to interact with it and provide feedback. Your MVP doesn’t have to be complicated or perfect – it just needs to showcase the core experience you plan to provide users with your product. Some easy ways to create MVPs include: designing a mock web/mobile app, making a video demonstration, building a basic landing page, creating a clickable prototype. Then ask people to sign up or pre-order your product before it’s built. If you can’t find anyone willing to take that leap, you need to rethink or redesign your offering.

Operate: Once you’ve secured early interest from real potential customers, it’s time to start making actual sales or purchases happen to validate that people will exchange money for your product or service. This doesn’t always mean fully launching your business immediately or having a 100% finished product (unless you’re creating a simple digital product like an ebook). For a physical product startup you could launch a crowdfunding campaign to see if people will financially contribute before you manufacture anything. For an app startup you could launch in beta to a smaller group of users first. Starting smaller allows you to continue gathering customer feedback, fine tuning your product, ironing out operations, and making sure your business model is viable as you scale up.

Kill Bad Ideas and Keep Good Ones

Brainstorming is all about coming up with a huge list of ideas – good or bad – and then culling out the terrible ones later. Don’t self-edit in the early stages or you’ll limit your creativity. There are no bad ideas – yet.

To get the creative juices flowing, try techniques like listing random objects (sunglasses, pineapples, Hamilton soundtrack) and forcing yourself to connect them into a business. Or use the SCAMPER technique:

• Substitute – What can I swap out?
• Combine – What can I mash together?
• Adapt – What new use is there?
• Modify – What can I tweak?
• Put to another use
• Eliminate – What can I remove?
• Reverse – What if I flipped it?

Bounce concepts off friends and family to generate even more possibilities. Make it a lively brainstorming session with good snacks. The sillier things get, the better.

Once your list has lots of options, then you can shift into critic mode. Rank them on criteria like your personal interests, profit potential, and skill set requirements. Cut out the clearly terrible fits but keep the maybes. You never know what kernel of an idea might turn into something with more development.

Talk to Real Potential Customers All those hours watching Shark Tank make the path to success seem clear – come up with prototype product, pitch to Mr. Wonderful, get $100K for 10% equity in your sock sorting business, boom!

In the real world, the #1 thing you need to do is validate that people actually want to buy what you’ll be selling. Is your product solving a real hair-on-fire problem for potential customers? Are similar offerings already out there? Would people actually pay for it?

These are hard questions, but answering them upfront instead of wasting months building something no one wants will save you enormous time and pain down the road.

The best way to get answers is simply talking to real potential customers, target by target. Don’t ask your mom – she’s required by law to tell you your ideas are genius. Find your customer avatar. Is it busy moms? College kids? Gym bros? Whoever it is, track down some actual human specimens and have frank conversations about their interests vs your ideas.

A few good questions to ask:

• What daily problems do you face that you’d pay to solve? Listen closely here – the juiciest business ideas solve burning pain points.
• What do you currently use to handle that problem? Competition is both good and bad. Good because it validates demand. Bad because you need some differentiation.
• Would you buy a product if it did [your idea]? Watch body language closely even if they say yes.
• How much would you pay? Get specifics – perceived value is key.

It’s not easy putting your precious ideas out there to potentially get crushed by strangers. But if 9 out of 10 people say they’d buy what you’re selling for $X, then you really might be onto something big.

Refine and Retest Talking to potential customers always generates new insights you can use to tweak your concepts. Zoom way in on precise customer segments and their needs or expand far out into new mashups of ideas that fill unexpected gaps.

Pay special attention for any glimmers of something viable even in concepts otherwise declared dead. Spin those off and test demand separately.

Keep iterating this entire process until you have some solid contenders to move forward with. Remember Instagram started as a location check-in app no one wanted called Burbn. It took testing and refinement to find the social photo sharing goldmine hiding inside that dud.

Moving from idea to real sustainable business is hard no matter what age you are. I still have a dusty file of crazy inventions I was sure would take the world by storm in my youth (pizza scissors anyone?). But by learning to brainstorm effectively and test possible traction with your target audience first, your chances of success radically increase. Even if the final product looks nothing like that original burst of inspiration, systematic development of concepts grounded in customer reality is the best path forward to finding ideas that make good money.

I hope this gives you clarity for assessing if your new business idea could actually thrive out in the real world. Now get out there, solicit brutally honest feedback, have your assumptions challenged, and sell the first version of your product…even if it’s held together by duct tape in the beginning! By laying that solid foundation confirming real demand upfront, you’ll be positioned to turn your passion and creativity into a successful startup.

Best of luck channeling your inner entrepreneur!