Do ideas succeed?
Do you really want a good idea?
The preponderance of research suggests the most critical determinant of successful new products is the quality of the idea being pursued. Garbage in, garbage out. All other things being equal, no matter how well you follow the best practices and stage gate processes, if you start with any idea you will have poorer results than if you started with a vast market need.
When we started our research we were looking at inventors and the 1:500 success rate (if you can call success making back the cost of the patent). We were surprised to discover that this is a problem for businesses as well. Too often someone's idea gets nominated to be the next new product and then for mysterious reasons, fails to gain traction in the market place.
It didn't solve a problem that enough people were willing to spend money on.