"The reaction of potential investors, who have many years of experience, and extremely objective, will provide you with vital information on the likely success or failure of your idea." I completely agree. (I tend to try to get bank loans for business plans for similar reasons - I don't actually want the loan, I just want to find out what the high-growth bank guy thinks. This at one point saved me about two years on an attractive but poorly-thought-out idea!) But how would you implement this if you're working in a traditionally uninvestable area? I'm thinking film production, obviously. You've got to be very optimistic to expect a return on just about any independent production as an outside investor, regardless of merit, so if as a creator you've decided you want to go there anyway, how would you go about getting the same sort of feedback you're talking about getting from investors?