[There's a theoretical issue involved: where is the bottleneck, ie what is more available/lacking, ideas or implementors/testers. Let's say one idea needs 3 main implementers, and idea people have 5 ideas each and implementers don't have any.
What is the proportion of idea-people in the population, and of implementers?
In an ideal world, where all the world's population was available, would there be more good ideas than people to test/develop them? Or not enough ideas, or a relatively exact match (like male to female births)? Would every capable implementer be maximally employed working 60 hours a week, with noone to develop the remaining ideas, and all would be tantalized by the way the world could have developed if only there were enough people to implement all the other good ideas out there. In a way it is like that now, companies are searching for talent.
Given the present non-ideal situation, that there are many underutilized brains in underdeveloped countries, is it possible that one can find testers/implementers to develop ideas? Or maybe not, because such people are found and employed by large international companies already?
But forget about the theoretical aspect, and back to business:]
There is a large pool of freelancers. Some are freelancers because they are in underdeveloped countries without a branch of a large company present, or because they are between startups, or they need time for family or etc. (Or maybe all freelancers are not fully-employed because they are 2nd rate?)
The freelance market is sufficient in quantity and quality to create a pop-up team to develop an idea to the point where individual mentors could then help it develop. But it is all predicated on the following assumptions A, B, C, D:
A) there are many people who
B)
C) Such projects can be brought to a successful conclusion, and the effort will be worth it to the mentors.
D) There is no existing service which shepherds idea-people all the way from idea to established business (except in closed systems, like a business school perhaps does for its students etc).
I think this approach leverages abilities enabled by the web which are as yet untapped...and after the 1-hr accelerator, if the idea is posted on the site for freelancers to see, in a suitably-vague way, there will inevitably be some who think it is a great idea, and up their alley professionally, and will be motivated to contact the Founder.
.....
to get results -- a business -- needs much more than ideas and a shepherding committee.
Taking it from a different angle:
Venture Capitalists -- and there are a lot of them here in Israel -- systematically look out for ideas, and great teams, and real market potential, and then provide lots of money, and then its still excruciating difficult for the team to succeed, with only 7% of all startup companies breaking even after 5 or so years, and only 2-4% of all funded ventures making it big. More than 93% of all ventures fail -- even with a great idea, great team, and lots of money. Note how little the idea component is in all of this.
The key in all cases is to find market validation -- without it, nothing will happen .
Another key component is money -- its very hard to raise money -- and a pop up team is expensive. Good freelancers charge 100 USD or more an hour. And you need full time people for a good period of time. A realistic proof of concept can take 6 months and cost 500K USD -- and such an investment only makes sense when you know that there is clear next step that leads to money..
And the key question here is whether the idea is worth the initial investment.
Knowing that ideas only very minimally contribute to success -- how much money are you willing to spend on an idea -- at the idea stage?
I look at all this as a problem which needs to be solved.
re Market validation:
It would be great to harness human ingenuity across the globe, and help developing countries. I think there are many thousands of skilled business people in small villages and towns in underdeveloped countries who are exercising their brilliance by opening tiny businesses which make them a small profit, just enough to survive, but better than most of the fellows, and if they had been in the West the would be successful entrepreneurs. Maybe these people - who usually now have a cell with internet - could be recruited by a team as testers of a concept, by opening a tiny local version of an MVP. ie the team can create outlines of small mini-MVPs which could be adopted by local tiny-business people to be implemented in their village, and this would be done with several such mini-entrepreneurs in various parts of the world, with the results monitored centrally. Of course not every startup idea can work in a small enough scale, but many should be able to, if enough ingenuity went into crafting the real minimal application of the idea.
.......
Re: expensive:
How expensive? And might freelancers bear some of the cost as a gamble like a vc? ie:
i. After the 1-hr accelerator, how many hours of mentoring by individuals would an idea-person need in order to get accepted into an accelerator, including assistance with identifying the right ones and preparing the application material? Would it be too expensive?
ii. And if after the 1-hr free accelerator, and the hours of paid mentoring individually, they are nevertheless rejected from all the accelerators they apply to, is it still possible that there is merit to their project by that time (after all the input) - ie sufficient merit to interest some freelancers to become part of the project-team (but only part-time) for a promise of equity if there is success? This would enable freelancers to be vc's, with their portfolio being businesses they themselves have put some input into for pay. And they would put in only 5 hours a week, so it is not catastrophic if it fails.
iii. For many people, though they are dreaming big, even if it turns only into 'a nice business' not 'a mega startup' perhaps this can be sufficient to the idea person and to the freelancers to whom it is just something on the side, so what is a failure to a VC fund can be a success nevertheless, when it can be scaled DOWN to a local small business.
It would be nice if there was such a framework - basically a simple website enabling some interactivity - even if it was only an organization, a non-profit, just to help the world develop. And maybe it would not be needed or not realistic and it would not be used, that would be ok, at least the possibility was placed out there in the world.