I grew up fed by the peculiar conviction that ideas are priceless. In a nutshell, whichever alluring concept I have coined in my head, I shouldn't ever share it with anyone to prevent it from becoming an intellectual theft. Well, time had to pass for me just to find out the opposite is true: ideas are worthless.

The harsh truth is that our opinions don't matter. After all, if people don't care, whatever we come up with is in vain. For-profit ventures depend only on the opinions of others.

Yet, we neglect this sound logic and avoid confronting our ideas with an external world. We let our brains be fooled by confirmation bias — the cognitive behavior that makes us cherry-pick information and ignore things that contradict what we want to be true.

As a result, products and services desired by nobody litter business chronicles. Every now and then, a spectacular failure — like Quibi or Google Glass — makes the evening news. The prevalence of this occurrence finds its illustration in the playful research approach of Samuel West. He has opened the Museum of Failure. It collects prime exhibits of ignorance and conviction of our infallibility. 

The thing is, we don't have to give in to the evolutionary shortcomings of our brains. The acceptance of our wishful thinking tendency may only help us tackle any perceptual blind spots.

Scientists know it well. They employ small-scale experiments to produce evidence, as bringing facts to the table removes subjectivity. We can do the same. It starts with acknowledging that any new business idea is a collection of unproven assumptions waiting for real-life confirmation.