It’s a well known fact that ideas that are kept in the drawer never reach their potential. Ideas need to be brought out into the open, discussed, elaborated upon, shown to people, tossed and turned etc. etc. until the idea transforms into a business opportunity, a product, a concept or whatever.
This proces of refining the raw idea into something usefull is being optimised in a variety of ways. A common buzz concept is crowdsourcing which intend to reduce the risk of creating products that people don’t really like. Another concept is userdriven innovation which is similar and by no means a new invention – except maybe in the product design world where designers traditionally have been sitting behind closed doors crafting their designs without any interaction with the end consumer.

One startup that builds on these new concepts is quirky which call themselves a ‘social product development company’.

The idea is brilliant and also very simple: a) submit your idea, b) pay a small fee, and c) let the community (i.e. registered users) decide which product to take into production (they are currently rallying votes for product # 5).
If your idea is chosen, quirky and the rest of the community will help develop, build, and sell the product and part of the revenue goes back to you and other users that influenced the product.
There’s a lot more to the concept, so go check it out!

It’s all about sharing your idea, and making money. Excellent concept – and perhaps one for you to transform to the European market?
Or maybe just submit your 4-year-old-idea-in-the-drawer and make tons of money?