I couldn't agree more with the core concept here, which is: if customers haven't told you they'd pay for it (either when asked directly or in the form of giving you money), there's a good chance they're not going to.
<i>...you need to spend as much time talking to prospective customers as you do working on your product...</i><p>Better yet, use your customers' day-to-day problems as seeds for your idea. Better to scratch their itch than your own if you can. This would be a huge head start.
I must respectfully disagree. You can ask people all day, but unless you put them in front of a product and say click here, then it will be very hard for them to see its value.
Otherwise your prospects will be picturing your application in their head, and noone knows how they visualize it.<p>If you are confident about your product, build a simple prototype in a short amount of time and ship it for feedback.