The Problem With Good Ideas That Live Nowhere
An app concept is worth nothing without a development path, and a development path needs a record. The standard failure mode is a voice memo you recorded while driving, three pages of browser history, a half-finished notes app entry, and two conversations you had with someone whose feedback you can't reconstruct. The idea doesn't die — it just becomes impossible to evaluate because the information around it is scattered across six different places.
This template consolidates the concept-stage documentation for a specific receipt scanning and survey reward app concept: the idea rating, the written explanation, an audio note for the thinking you couldn't type fast enough, a merchant link URL, contact linking for customer/merchant relationship mapping, barcode scanning for receipt upload logic, the open source decision, the pricing model, and the ad monetization flag.
The rating field answers the first honest question — how good is this, actually — and pins a number to it before you invest more time. The Notes field forces you to explain it in writing. When the audio note and the written note say different things, you have found the part of the idea that isn't worked out yet.
The Free/Price/Ads structure captures the three monetization paths in parallel rather than treating them as mutually exclusive. Many apps that started as "free with no ads" ended up "free with optional ads and a premium tier" — having the fields present from day one keeps the commercial model in the picture while the concept is still being formed.