You gotta put yourself in the shoe.
For a simple example, you live in a climate where in the winter, it snows pretty bad. So you get your snow blower out and it’s even having trouble plowing through all the snow in your driveway. So as you’re having trouble, you ponder “ how can I make this problem go away? “. Then you start brainstorming and come up with “ What if I can find a way to emit enough heat from the blower to melt some of the snow as I’m plowing? “ then boom, The Frosty Melter 3000.
Now, is a good idea? Would it sell? Maybe. But you don’t know until you actually start researching and really look into what you’re solving and who you’re solving it for.
People get hit by cars everyday, seems like. But what people don’t know is that someone invented a device that could be put on the front-end of a car and if the car detects that you’re about to hit a human being, it deploys what looks to be like an angled blanket that’s scoops the person up and possibly saves their life from being flown several feet in the street.
You think people are using that invention? Could you imagine how innovative it would’ve been if it had reached a great potential? Don’t just think outside the box, analyze it.