Proper market validation

I know that my product has market potential.

How do I know that?  For the last 4 years I was working in Amdocs on a single product called Amdocs Self Service. It's a platform for developing self service web applications which integrate to various back-end systems, specifically geared toward the Telecom industry. I designed the front-end framework of the product and some of the back-end as well. I was actively involved with at least 5 major product implementations and deployments at major Telcos, including AT&T and Vodafone. I personally trained at least 150 developers in this area and provided consulting to many more. Finally, I ended up as the chief architect (CTO) of the product and met with CTOs and architects from at least 10 major Telcos.

I've experienced the pain. I believe I know what needs to be done to fix it.

However, I will need to convince other people. Investors, potential partners and employees (not to mention customers, but let's leave that for now).
Can I do that?

In the passing months, I've pitched my idea to various people and discovered that they can be categorized into mainly 3 groups:

1. Most technical people who experienced "enterprise development" love it. It's easy to see why. Much like me, they experienced the pain and believe that something can be done about it. My explanation sounds reasonable and they see how it can improve their daily routines. It is just what they need.
2. Most development managers are skeptical. I see mainly 2 reasons: either they didn't experience enough pain or they've seen too many tools come and go with no great benefit, eventually becoming shelfware. IMHO, this is one of the main reasons that tools should be sold from the bottom: reach out to the people in the trenches and let them talk their boss into it.
3. It's very hard to pitch to non-technical people, as the idea is very technical. Especially the competitive edge, which is as technical as it can get. It's one of my most difficult challenges.

The last issue is the tough one. I'm currently targeting potential investors. The type of investment is more suitable for a private investor - it's not enough money for a VC. While VCs usually have their resident techie to evaluate potential projects, private investors mostly rely on their own instincts. You may say that the burden of proof becomes heavier. Either I find a truly technical investor (from the first group, very rare) or I should bring with me enough credit to show that my product has the market potential.

For that reason, my next step would be to perform market validation. I will do so by conducting a survey among several potential customers which I can easily reach. I will pitch my idea to people at different levels and gather their feedback using an on-line survey. This seems to be the best I can do at the moment.

I don't feel very comfortable with this way of market validation, from the following reasons:

• From the investor perspective, the interesting people in the survey will be those who will eventually make the buying decision. The managers. Group 2 above. A hard sell.
• The "nice effect" - I'm a nice person, I'll be meeting with people on my network which are also nice. We're all talking hypothetically, since there's no product yet. They want to be supportive, so why shouldn't they be?  Although this will yield "nice" answers, it may steer me away from the truth and hang a question mark over the results.

Having that said, I don't see better alternatives. It's important to be aware of the above negative effects. It may help reducing them when conducting the survey.