Good ideas often fail because of bad timing. I’ve personally experienced this with a product idea, that on it’s way to being produced, got side swiped by a flailing economy.

According to Bill Gross, founder of Idealab, timing is the number one reason startups fail. In his recent TED talk, he reports that when accounting for 5 key factors: Idea, Team, Business Model, Funding, and Time – Timing was the biggest factor in success or failure. Surprisingly, idea was only the 3rd most critical factor.

His less than 10 min TED talk is worth watching…..if you have the time.

What does this mean? Here, I talk about about our perception of time being a construct of the brain and how it can be manipulated. How can something so abstract be accounted for in the generation of new ideas?

Below are a few ways to account for timing…

Relationship: Be in relationship with the world around you. Isolation runs you the risk of developing an idea that is not connected to the way people are actually living their lives.

Presence: Events are not as random as they seem. Many times we can look back and see all the clear linkages that produced our present state.

Vision: Draw linkages between people, world events and your personal experience to identify trends.

Usefulness: Aspects of the idea can be timely, while others may not be. When packaged with useless ideas, even a good idea can seem untimely.

Relevance: Answer the question, why is this idea relevant for today?

Sometimes, you may check-off all the boxes, but still have an idea that doesn’t get off the ground. The reality is, only time will tell.