Execution is more important than an idea for a successful business.

Alright! theLwerd, I agree with the business objectives you've mentioned; just to add -- those can also be seen as measures of business success. I'd like add one more to the list though -- customer reach i.e. size/growth of customer base. Now moving towards toy-and-shoe store example. Assuming that you haven't really read my argument in comment, I am reiterating it here -- the choice between opening a toy-store or a shoe-store is not the product idea when evaluated against demand-supply equation. Market analysis is a part of execution, per se. Now, lets say, there are two persons -- Tony and Shane. Without any market analysis, both of them decide to start to business. Tony has a great idea to manufacture toys and Shane has great idea to manufacture shoes. To make the story further interesting, lets say, Tony lives in BigMenCity where there is no demand for toys; and Shane lives in BareFootCity where there is no demand for shoes. Now comes the execution part -- both have great ideas according to my interpretation (or bad ideas, according to your interpretation) -- but irrespective of how great or bad an idea alone is; there profits, customer satisfaction level and reach will be determined by how they run there stores. Tony is great at execution so he learns that he is not going to sell his great toys in BigMenCity. So he figures out places in world like AllKidsCity, KidsOnlyCity, LetsPlayCity etc and opens his stores there. Given the fact that he knows web 2.0 technologies (as his sister is computer graduate), he launches a web site to showcase and sell his toys online! He also does market analysis of different areas and sets different price range in different areas to ensure profits as well as reach. He also seeks feedback from their customers consistently and improves his toys to gain more customer satisfaction. And Shane does nothing -- because he believes that his shoes are great and they are going to bring him success. Well, it takes no guesses, to find who succeeds and who fails. The contrary scenario -- "too low price" -- is certainly an execution flaw. Now customer would more than happy to get something for free but a business can't even survive by making customers happy that way; let alone being successful. Thus with good product and bad execution -- business fails! Now lets say one has bad product idea and starts a business. An excellent execution consist of feedback and improvisation loop. Over time, the product will evolve (may even get transformed completely if situation demands) and down the line the product based on bad idea will turn out good and build a successful business around. In fact, many people fail before starting a business because they're in search of a great idea. Best way to build a business is "to get started" and learn as you go. Waiting for a great idea is a bad idea indeed. There are plenty of examples around where the companies initially started with a completely bad ideas (well, those looked bad in retrospect of course) ... over time they learned, evolved and transformed their ideas into a highly successful products. For example, Motorola started with battery repair service and then moved into car radios, then television, then semiconductors and ICs and eventually into cellular communications! And today they connect millions of people together with their legendary communication devices. One more example that would make the point further clear -- Mark Zuckerberg, a stanford graduate, was accused of stealing the concept of online social networking from founders of ConnectU.com ... that would mean he developed a product based on an idea behind ConnectU.com ... now I am not sure how many people are aware of ConnectU.com today ... but the product developed by Mark Zuckerberg has turned out tremendously successful today -- it's called facebook.com! Now both ConnectU and Facebook are based on same idea of online social networking; what differentiates them is the way they were executed. Thanks.