When you're working on a project over time, you never know for sure if you're on the track. Most people in that situation, looking for feedback, look for the stark raving fans that sing praise of their idea.

Me, I think you know you're on the right track when you start getting noisy detractors. Not trolls, but people who make passionate statements about why what you're doing is wrong, or why it won't work, or why you're wasting your time.

Before Howard Schultz came along, the owners of Starbucks felt that getting into the coffee bar business was a bad idea. Coffee is supposed to be made in the home, they felt, and the concept of opening a location that served coffee by the cup seemed silly to them.

If everyone who hears your idea is comfortable with it, then it's not an idea, it's an imitation. Some discomfort or dissent is probably a good omen.