Lab42, an innovative market research start-up, published results today of a study revealing how Americans are watching TV now compared to last year.

With Hulu, YouTube, and DVRs, it is easier than ever to make sure you do not miss your favorite televisions shows. Lab42 wanted to find out whether or not Americans are actually taking advantage of these innovations or if good, old cable is still the predominant television medium.

We found that the convergence of media and technology has dramatically changed how Americans are watching TV, especially for those under the age of 30. Check out this infographic below to find out more.

(click to enlarge image)

Two interesting points:
1. Nearly 60% of Americans are watching MORE television shows than a year ago.
2. VCRs are still used by 13% of Americans to record programs. That amounts to more than 20 million households.

The flood of venture capital from 2005 through 2007 slowed considerably, but after a slow 2009, the money and venture investors seem to be back in funding action. For the full year, 2,792 companies raised a total of $23.7 billion, but while the amount of fundings have returned, the deals change. See how in this infographic.

Interpretation? Expect a wave of tech-based IPOs in 2011-2013. Can you say "Social Media Bubble"?

 

Amnesia Razorfish Connect has been developed entirely in-house at Amnesia Razorfish by the creative and emerging technology teams.

Following months of research and development, Amnesia Razorfish has replaced the typical ‘send and receive’ interface with a more natural ‘gesture-based’ interface. A smartphone owner can now move their content freely between two devices by simply dragging content off their phone onto a Microsoft Surface Table and back onto another device instantly.

Amnesia Razorfish Founder and Executive Creative Director Iain McDonald said: “The previous barriers which stood in the way of getting content on or off your phone have been completely removed with this software.

“In the past device integration like this has been mainly confined to Hollywood movies or smoke and mirror demos, so we set ourselves the challenge of making it real.

“It took a while to crack, but the result speaks for itself – all the buttons are gone and sharing content is now completely instinctive. In a world where smartphones are becoming omnipresent, this kind of software opens another world of ideas for brands.”

Amnesia Connect allows gesture transfer of mobile content instantly

The smartphone user can transfer new free or commercial content from the table by dragging it directly to their phone with a single swipe – then before full transfer takes place, a preview instantly visible as a live motion tracked ‘lens preview’ through the phone display – similar to an X-ray through to the table.

For example, in less than a few seconds a photo can be taken on one device and dragged effortlessly onto the Surface table and then directly onto another device running on Amnesia Connect software.

“The new software promises a range of new possibilities for the retail and hospitality industries in particular. In the near future we envisage a Smartphone user being to complete commercial transactions for both physical and digital content,” McDonald said.

Amnesia Connect in action

The Amnesia Connect software works with all Apple IOS devices and is being further developed to work seamlessly with Android, Windows Phone and BlackBerry Smartphones.

Amnesia Razorfish Connect utilises a range of technologies including Wi-Fi, proximity detection, unique ID and phone accelerometer, depending on the type of phone and location.

For in-store transactions, NFC (Near-Field-Communications) has been proposed as one of several possibilities for payment transactions, although a pre-authenticated user account with credit card details could also be used.

Amnesia Connect has also been developed to work with the new Microsoft Surface 2.0 table, that was announced at the 2011 International Consumer Electronics Show.

Love the mobile web possibilities. Pretty cool technology.

Yesterday, Gartner said that mobile application revenue will nearly triple in 2011, to $15.1bn ($5.2bn last year) and much of that growth will come from 18 billion app downloads 60,000 of which are designed for the Apple iPad, which has seen sales beat expectations.

The iPad, almost a year old now, had racked up sales of almost 15 million (14.8 million by the end of 2010) and about 7.33 million of those sales came in December. That growth is set to rocket this year as this infographic shows.

Half of the iPad sales came in December. Altogether Apple sold 5x what Wall St analysts thought they would. Now Wall St is predicting tablets to soar from 15 million to 115 million by 2014 - that is a 66% growth rate! What is the risk to that kind of meteoric ascent?

Let's say a couple has a joint Farmville account. They labor over it for months, even years, lovingly tending their turnips and midget goats, trading seeds and stud horses with their neighbors, etc. Then one day they get divorced, and because they live in a community property state, they have to either divide all their stuff in half or, if it's indivisible, like their home, one spouse must reimburse the other for half its value. But what happens to the Farmville account?

This question is being taken up in earnest by lawyer and legal scholar Sally Brown Richardson in the forthcoming paper 'Classifying Virtual Property in Community Property Regimes: Are My Facebook Friends Considered Earnings, Profits, Increases in Value, or Goodwill?,' to be published in the Tulane Law Review.

Richardson doesn't address Farmville per se, but she does address Facebook, websites, email contacts and the like, and the legal precedents she's exploring would presumably apply to everything from medals accrued on Xbox Live to gold stashed away in World of Warcraft, if it could be proved that any of these virtual goods contributed to the professional success of either spouse.

Here's how Brown describes the various Facebook conundra facing courts deciding the issue in future divorce cases:

Suppose when H entered the marriage he had 500 Facebook friends. During the course of the marriage, H acquires 500 more Facebook friends. Unlike photos or comments, Facebook friends are not content H posts; Facebook friends are connections H makes. By friending people, H will gain certain rights because he will be able to view more Facebook profiles.

Similarly, by adding additional friends H generally allows more people to see his profile. Thus, increasing the number of Facebook friends, H increases the value of his Facebook profile because he increases the rights of his profile. The value of H's Facebook page was increased using community labor; H had to spend time and energy finding and requesting friends.

Because H's labor during the community increased the value of his separate property, W would be entitled to either a reimbursement or an ownership interest in that separate property depending upon the jurisdiction.

Brown also notes that "The obvious difficulty would lie in determining how much a Facebook friend is worth."

I'm guessing that would depend, in part, on the nature of the friend. If I manage to hook up with a celebrity on Facebook, I suppose that would be worth more than being friended by that ex-jock from high school who now sells insurance in some wind-blasted corner of North Dakota.

It sounds frivolous, but given that many businesses are now questioning whether or not their Facebook pages now have more value than their own websites, her logic seems unassailable:

If a Mom and Pop shop create a Facebook profile to drum up more business, upon the divorce of Mom and Pop, who has rights to the Facebook profile is as valid of a question as who has rights to the book of business or the trademark of the logos.

No doubt one consequence of this expanding area of the law is that rights to Facebook "likes" are now going to be written into the prenuptial agreements of Hollywood elites.

"Virtual" property must be divided or reimbursed according to some initial legal decisions.

If I was a judge, I'd throw this crap out of court. It's a hobby. Period. Get some counseling and get on with your lives. If you did more stuff together, you wouldn't be getting a divorce.

Go Retro With These 8-Bit and Old School Video Game Wallpapers

This week we're reliving the past in 8-bit simplicity. Here are some awesome retro video game and 8-bit wallpapers to enjoy.

By popular demand, we're adding mobile wallpapers this week. Whether you're downloading on the desktop or from your smartphone, the wallpaper title is also the download link. Just right click or tap and hold down (depending on your platform) to save it.

Desktop

Let's start with the usual—the desktops!

Freaky Fonts 8-Bit Wallpapers

A series of awesome 8-bit wallpapers were once available on Freaky Fonts but they seem to have gone missing, so download them here instead. You won't just get the Donkey Kong wallpaper you see above, but other fun options from classic games like Bubble Bobble, Pac Man, and Space Invaders.

Mario Mushrooms

This wallpaper was created by DesktopNexus user userNULL, featuring the wonderful variety of 8-bit Mario mushrooms and blocks. It's a nice, simple way to pay your respects to the mushrooms that sacrifice their lives to power up our favorite plumber.

Two Girls, One Up

Raphael Sabbat's desktop led me to a wallpaper I couldn't find, but I did find the source image and just made a wallpaper out of it. So, here you are...a Mario Bros. homage to one of the most disgusting internet videos every made.

Lifehacker Night School: The Desktop

We've been playing around with eight whole bits ourself this week, making graphics for our new Lifehacker Night School. We thought we'd make you a desktop to enjoy as well.

8-Bit Dragster

An often forgotten gem from Activision, Dragster can now live on in glorious black and white through this simple desktop by The Retroist.

Mobile

Now for a little in mobile, where you can even have a wallpaper that is an actual game.

Mario Live Wallpaper for Android

Why settle for a still image when you can make Super Mario Bros. or Super Mario World your actual living wallpaper? Check out the video for a demo. It will drain the battery pretty quickly, but at least you'll be using your battery for something pretty awesome. Also, it's free. [Spletni dnevnik via Mashable]

Sonic Live Wallpaper

If Sonic's more your style, this live wallpaper should do the trick. It will cost you $1, though.

Legend of Zelda Smartphone Wallpapers

Two things that would be a shame to leave out: iOS users and the Legend of Zelda. Here are a few illustrated wallpapers that'll work for both. Here are a few more.

This rocks. Seriously. Rocks.

USA has over 148 million people registered on Facebook which makes it by far the #1 country on Facebook in terms of users.

How does each state perform on Facebook and what is the value of penetration to population?

Find out in the following chart:

As we can clearly see from the chart, California is the leading state with more than 19 million people and penetration to population close to 52 %. That means every second Californian has its account on Facebook. If California were an independent country, it would have placed itself on the 9th position in the world! Right between Mexico and Italy.

Second and third highest numbers of users on Facebook belong to Texas (11 million) and New York (10 million). These are the only states (together with California of course) which conquered the 10 million barrier. Rest of the positions belongs to Florida (8.8 million), Illinois (6.2 million), Pennsylvania (5.8 million), Ohio (5.4 million), etc.

Interesting fact is that most of the states in the TOP 20 score quite high values in the penetration to population percentage. This number is very close to 50 % by many states.

Michigan is #8. But Ohio is #7.

In certain teen social circles, it's considered a subtle act of arrogance, a signifier of the loner, to use a solo photo of yourself for your Facebook profile. Digital natives may have earned their reputation as the "entitlement generation," but apparently there are some social limits to their unabashed self-regard.

In fact, there's compelling evidence the up-and-coming cohort of young Americans has grown increasingly sophisticated in navigating the public-by-default scene of social networks. Researchers say they are evolving forms of social coding to signal to each other while at the same time keeping their thoughts, activities and personal communications masked from older generations.

For example, profile photos that include friends may have originated as a safety mechanism, according to Danah Boyd, a researcher that specializes in the intersections between technology and society at Harvard's Center for Internet and Society, but now are a "social signal that you are sociable."

Though social media has expanded well beyond the youth demographic -- 20 percent of Facebook users are aged 45 or older -- the front lines of cultural-technological change are predominately filled by the young. This is, ultimately, their world. The rest of us are just visiting.

Given their numbers -- 82 million Americans were born between 1980 and 2000 -- and their reputation for strong opinions, the buying clout of Gen Y consumers could surpass all previous generations.

The Badge of Brands

The Gen Y relationship to brands is part of a broader shift in social norms ushered in by digital communications. When young people choose to "like" a brand on Facebook, they're essentially putting on a badge that helps define them among their peers. Online brand fandom can be viewed as a performance, part of a carefully calibrated process to craft and project a personal identity that transcends public and private selves.

"Even when people really lock down their privacy settings on Facebook, one of the things they don't hide is what brands they like," explained Peter Swanson, a college-aged intern at our ad agency, Engauge, whom we regularly interrogate on Gen Y social protocols. "I know it sounds superficial, but if I see a girl likes three or four brands, I pretty much know who she is -- or at least, I can tell if we're going to click, if we've got a chance. If she likes J. Crew, right? Or, like, Old Navy? That says a lot."

Coded Messages

Conscious brand identification can be exercised online by more mature demographics, but the critical difference is that teens appear more naturally attuned to the subtlest of social signals online.

Having been raised in the digital slipstream, they're highly sensitive to its shifting currents. That's both good news and bad news for marketers. On one hand, positive and public brand associations can generate significant value for brands.

But, on the other hand, as the industry moves inexorably toward more sophisticated behavioral marketing, there are signals that teens are adopting practices to remain unknowable and inscrutable.

One of the ways that teenagers have adapted to the open social architecture of online networks is by increasingly coding their public messages in private language -- song lyrics, personal jokes -- that's decipherable only to those friends who are the intended recipients of the message.

This "social coding" can effectively keep nosy parents, college admissions officers and future employers in the dark. This doesn't mean they're scrubbing every detail from their public personas.

"Teens turn to private messages or texting or other forms of communication for intimate interactions, but they don't care enough about certain information to put the effort into locking it down," said Boyd, the Harvard researcher, when addressing the international convention on privacy and data protection last October. "But this isn't because they don't care about privacy. This is because they don't think that what they're saying really matters all that much to anyone."

The average teen sends or receives 50 text messages daily, according to Pew Internet. Over 30 percent of teens send more than 100 texts, and 15 percent send more than 200. (The average adult sends 10.)

Interestingly, Twitter is now emerging as a favored channel for private communication among the most popular and tech-sophisticated teens in high-income American communities. Boyd has observed that these teens tend to protect their Twitter accounts, making them accessible only to a subset of friends. This also relieves them from too much traffic on Facebook. "Facebook is like shouting in a crowd, Twitter is like talking in a room," one teen she studied said.

This all seems counter-intuitive to the older Twitter demographic, which is steeped in the traditions of mass media and eager to broadcast messages to the widest possible audience.

As digital natives mature, their public presence and behavior on social networks will evolve, impacting broader social norms. The expansion of these new social codes may require a rewrite of the prevailing narrative of digital natives as self-absorbed narcissists unconcerned about privacy. And wouldn't that be a nice surprise.

"The front lines of cultural-technological change are predominately filled by the young. This is, ultimately, their world. The rest of us are just visiting."

Consider that according to Pew, the average teen sends/receives 50 text messages daily. More than 30 percent send more than 100 texts and 15 percent send more than 200 daily. By contrast, the average adult sends 10 texts daily. Texting is the "private" side of social networks and new media marketing.

The explosion in smartphone sales has challenged the imaginations of creatives to come up with marketing ideas tailored for the mobile space. Along with location-based marketing, augmented reality applications really came into focus for many brands, from luxury companies to small businesses in 2010.

Indicatively, according to figures from ABI Research, the market for augmented reality (AR) in the US alone is expected to hit $350m (£218m) in 2014, up from about $6m (£3.8m) in 2008. Marketers try to engage consumers with relevant content and interactive experiences making the most of the “wow” factor of the relatively new communication tools. The question is has AR marketing managed to grow into something truly useful for both marketers and consumers or will its hype fizzle out like cheap champagne?

Brands in 2010 have used AR technology for utility-based and innovative applications that amplify the customer experience, managing to engage an increasingly wider audience. Let’s take a look at this years most talked about case studies.

Adidas Originals Augmented Reality Game Pack: Adidas turned Originals sneakers into a game control device by adding an AR code on the shoe’s tongue. When held in front of a webcam, the code provides access to a number of different interactive games on Adidas website which the players can navigate with their shoe.

Ben & Jerry’s Scoop of Happiness: Ben & Jerry’s iPhone app with the Moo Vision augmented reality feature generates images related to the flavor you’re scanning which you can click on to find out more info and share with your friends on social networks.

Toyota Scion tC Take On The Machine: Toyota topped off it’s digital campaign for the 2011 Scion tC with an AR game on scion’s site. The user prints an AR marker which is used as a steering wheel to race with the new tC and win a spot in the global top 100 highscore board.

Airwalk Jim Shoe: In November, Airwalk used an augmented reality app from GoldRun to launch invisible pop-up stores which sold a limited edition of the Jim shoe in New York and LA. To access the invisible store, customers had to use the app to locate virtual Jim shoes at dedicated locations and take a photo of the shoe to gain a pass code to the Airwark e-commerce site. Airwalk reported that since then its e-commerce site has witnessed the most traffic in the company’s history.

Subject60: Volvo and EuroRSCG 4D teamed up for the promotion of the Volvo S60 by organizing five secret parties in Berlin, London, Paris, Milan and Madrid. In order to get an invite one had to find one of the code cubes, hidden in “naughty” locations around the city. The project was in collaboration with hand picked lifestyle bloggers and blog readers were given clues to discover the hidden cubes by using the Layar Augmented Reality browser.

Toyota Auris virtual test drive: Toyota enabled car enthusiasts to create a virtual track, by printing off special markers to place around, and take a virtual Toyota Auris for a virtual test track. They also could record their test drives and share the clips on social networking sites, as well as the Auris microsite. Toyota offered a prize for the most innovative track with the winner receiving a super-deluxe home entertainment system to encourage a larger participation.

BMW Z4: By printing off a special symbol BMW fans could drive their own BMW Z4 around their desk and colourful designs with its tyres. The videos and images taken could then be shared on social networks.

Skoda Fabia RS Augmented Reality Test Drive: Yet another virtual test drive, this time transforming the user into a rally driver, making it more like a race car game, rather than a regular test drive ride. The user can then share his lap time with friends on Facebook.

Nestlé Kit Kat Augmented Reality Gig: Agency Skive Digital of London created an Augmented Reality campaign for Kit Kat UK . Holding one of the special AR Kit Kat “4-Finger” bar packages in front of a webcam unlocked a one-off Scouting for Girls performance. The special packs also offered consumers the chance to win one of thousands of £100 Ticketmaster vouchers through Kit Kat Music Break.

Virtual mirrors: Created by IBM and EZFace. The special kiosks were placed in stores in North and South America, Europe, and Asia, covering major cosmetics brands, like L’Oreal, Maybelline, Covergirl and Revlon. The shopper can take a picture and virtually try on makeup, while the “mirror” takes into consideration such things as skin tone, facial features, and product colour. The mirror can make recommendations and allow the consumer to share a virtual makeover image with friends online.

Unilever’s “Share Happy”: Unilever created an interactive ice cream machine that asks consumers to share a smile on Facebook to get a free ice cream.

Neuvo watches: Neuvo, a collaborative company from Montreal has created a free “try it before you buy it” iPhone app, which connects to Neuvo’s website and on-line store.

Olympus PEN: Olympus created a viral product demo with which you can virtually explore the camera’s features and also allows you take pictures and using the camera’s various filters. Afterwards you can share your pics and videos with friends online.

H&M: H&M used Goldrun’s app to enable shoppers in New York to try on virtually the clothes it features in its shop windows. The shoppers this way gained a discount code and share their looks with their Facebook friends.

Seventeen.com and J.C. Penney’s AR Dressing Room: As part of their back to school campaign, Seventeen and J.C. Penny launched a virtual dressing room through which teens could “try on” clothing using a webcam, and shop their items of preference through the J.C. Penney website. .

Tissot Reality: Through its website Tissot lets users print and cut out a paper strip in order to try on virtual watches. Tissot showcased the application with an interactive Selfridges window display. This reportedly resulted in increasing in-store sales at Selfridges by 85%, while the YouTube views of the campaign have surpassed 70,000.

Hublot: Swiss watchmaker Hublot launched an iPhone application that allows consumers to view the Hublot collection, design their own models and digitally trying them on.

Girard-Perregaux: Yet another watchmaker that created an iPhone app that allows users to “try on” watches.

Boucheron: The French jewelry house lets potential customers virtually try on products with use of their webcams by downloading an application from its website developed by Holition.

HomeScan: US real estate agency ZipRealty through its iPhone application HomeScan allows its potential customers to look through their phone and instantly discover which homes near them are for sale (or recently sold). Homescan provides info like the asking (or sold) price, photos and distance from where the user stands.

Iron Man 2: For the promotion of Iron Man 2 Paramount and Marvel invited Iron Man fans to take a look inside the Iron Man’s head. Through the movie’s website and with use of ther webcam, fans can try on Iron Man’s helmet take photos to download or share over Facebook and Twitter.

Dutch Public Service Billboard: The Dutch government placed augmented reality billboards in Amsterdam and Rotterdam to raise awareness about violence against public service employees. The billboards augmented a live street view with a violent altercation, making onlookers realize the impact of their inactivity against violence.

WWF: In an effort to raise awareness around the plight of the siberian tiger, WWF printed special t-shirts and distributed them online and to key stores in Moscow, with placed AR video mirrors that would instantly active the AR experience the moment a WWF t-shirt was detected. The idea was to simulate what a siberian tiger experiences when it gets shot.

Forever21: Fashion brand Forever21 installed an augmented reality billboard in Times Square this past June, in which a model dressed in Forever21 clothes seemed to interact with the crowd by taking photos of the passers by or selecting people, picking them up and throwing them into a Forever21 bag.

Streetmuseum: Museum of London’s iPhone app overlays specific locations around London with historical photographs mixing past with present. The app guides the user to these locations with the use of map or GPS.

Condé Nast Traveller City Guide: Condé Nast Traveler spiced up its iPhone apps by adding an augmented reality feature which allows the traveller to discover nearby attraction simply by scanning the area around with the iPhone camera.

Virtual Vacay: Hotels.com created Virtual Vacay, that enables users to take a virtual tour of ten US cities and find out information about local events and hotels in a fun way. The virtual tourists can even even send personalized post cards from their virtual travels to their friends.

Seer: IBM’s Seer application helped its users navigate Wimbledon 2010. The users could find information about the closest cash machine’s location, the wait time for certain services and even see live video from the matches, through their iPhone or Android camera.

Summing up, in 2010, branded AR application focused more on utility features, like Olympus PEN, that invited the consumers to interact with the products in order to drive sales. Many of them, like Adidas Originals, also used gaming mechanics in order to engage their customers and make their content viral. Another trend in AR marketing for 2010 was personalization. With gen Y remaining indifferent towards celebrity endorsed products, advertisement campaigns, like the Forever21 billboard, preferred to  make the consumer their star, rather than a Hollywood actor or a supermodel.

The future of AR evolves super fast, will brands be able to catch up? Recently we posted about a Japanese device that can augment taste, could it be that with some AR magic, in the next Nespesso ad we will be, not only able to share a cup of coffee with George Clooney, but enjoy our Nespesso’s aroma too?

Claire Boonstra, Layar Co-founder told us that her favorite AR case for 2010 is the iPhone and Android game Find Copān, which invites the players to a smartphone treasure hunt around Dublin City Centre. The game is inspired by the Mayan civilization and challenges the participants to locate virtual ancient tombs & treasure chests in order to win prizes.

Len Kendall, co-founder at the3six5, Digital Account Supervisor at GolinHarris and writer for GOOD singled out the Star Wars Arcade Falcon Gunner: “ I love this concept because it falls into the augmented reality realm and it’s incredibly simple. As of today, many AR applications are unapproachable to the masses because 1) they’re not used to the technology or 2) they don’t see the investment necessary to learn the nuances of individual AR apps are worth the time of the outcome. In other words, the entertainment or utility of these applications isn’t outweighing the input.

The Star Wars game took a widely adopted behavior (which was viewing the world through their smartphone’s screen, via their camera) and then simply layered a game on top of it. In my mind this was a perfect fusion of reality and a fictional world.” In terms of favorite branded augmented application for 2010 he picked the Forever 21 billboard in Times Square, we mentioned above: “In tune with my thought above, the F21 AR set up was very smart because it introduced the technology to people en masse and created an experience where consumers became the instant authorities. One person in the crowd would stop and notice the the technology in play, then explain the situation to those around them. And in this particular case, it didn’t require a smartphone device which removed a large barrier to entry.”

One hundred-million-dollar business ideas are the stuff of legends. Usually we read about them in the context of an entrepreneur who decided to follow his passion, or a founder who just happened to be the rocket scientist of his industry. Most of the time, however, this is not where great ideas or great companies come from. I interviewed 45 company founders, each of whom started, grew, and sold a company for $100 million or more, or took their company public for $300 million or more. Here are some of their secrets.

1. Fill a need, not a passion.

It’s a myth that successful businesspeople got into their field because they cared deeply about it. Success doesn’t follow passion, it follows need. Find something that no one’s doing that somebody should do. That’s what Dick Costolo, founder of Feedburner, did when he saw that publishers had content but no way to distribute it online to subscribers and syndicators. (Google eventually acquired Feedburner for $100 million.)

Don’t get me wrong — passion is critical. But what I’ve come to believe, based on the wisdom from these 45 home-run hitters who created $41 billion from scratch, is that need trumps passion and passion trumps skill. In other words, when you’re fired up with a great mission, you’ll become passionate about it. As for skills? Once you’re jazzed up about the great idea, skills can be acquired or hired.

2. Identify your customer’s big problem.

Where there’s a meaningful problem, there’s a reason to solve it. Cardiologist Donald C. Harrison came up with the idea for his medical device company AtriCure after asking himself how he could make a novel contribution that would help his heart patients in a major way.

One thing I learned after interviewing the founders is that, in most cases, their major innovations were not rocket science. They simply saw something, often very practical, that many other people simply missed. Successful company founders tend to be truly curious, and they don’t accept the status quo as being beyond improvement.

3. Get it from your hands, not your head.

How did a guy with a degree in supercomputing end up in the trucking biz? Internet Explorer billionaire Tim Krauskopf got the idea for a transportation technologies startup, FreightZone, after he learned to drive a semi and began to experience what was involved in the trucking industry.

So often, I discovered that $100 million ideas come from doers, tinkerers, and collaborators. Rock Mackie knew Tomotherapy was a viable concept only after three of his graduate students each made separate and important discoveries. Put together, his team’s ideas resulted in a new and remarkably better CT scanning technology for treating disease.

4. Make it sellable and fixable.

Do you think you have a great idea for a new product? It’s not a great idea until you’ve gotten involved in selling it. Jim Dolan of the Dolan Company, a newspaper and media publisher, advises that selling is the quickest way to find out what’s wrong with your product idea so you can fix it quickly and move on. When Dolan bought a 107-year-old legal newspaper publisher, he quickly figured out how to turn those fine-print bankruptcy notices that other newspapers overlooked into a $100 million product. If you can’t sell it, don’t make it.

Every one of the founders I interviewed had stories about the problems they wouldn’t have discovered had they not listened to customers, colleagues, and investors in the process of pitching their product.

5. Get help developing it.

Serial entrepreneur Mahendra Vora, who’s launched more than a dozen highly successful tech companies, warns would-be entrepreneurs not to be narcissistic about their idea. Instead, develop 60 percent of your vision, put it into the hands of trusted customers, and let them help with the remaining 40 percent of the idea.

Every one of the founders failed at one time or another along their entrepreneurial journey — sometimes spectacularly — before they found that $100 million idea. As a result, they learned humility. Many of them would argue that you can’t really build a successful business without it.

Great tips.