How do you decide which design deserves to exist?

I run a hand-knotted rug manufacturing business (RugsbyShrestha), and I've realized something surprising:

Designing rugs isn't the hard part.

Choosing which design to weave is.

We have over 600 designs in our archive, and a team of five designers constantly creating new ones. In theory, we could keep making new rugs forever.

In reality, every rug we commission is a huge bet.

Once a design goes on a loom, it's months of work, thousands of hand-tied knots, premium materials, and skilled artisans investing their time into something that can't easily be changed halfway through.

So every "yes" means saying "no" to dozens of other designs.

Over time, I've realized there isn't a formula for making these decisions.

You can study trend reports, customer feedback, and sales history—but at some point, it comes down to developing taste.

That means traveling, observing architecture, visiting museums, paying attention to fashion, noticing how colours evolve, and understanding how people want their homes to feel, not just how they want them to look.

The funny part is that some of the designs I loved the most never became rugs.

And some that I was unsure about ended up becoming customer favorites.

I'm curious how people in other creative fields handle this.

Whether you're designing products, writing, building software, making films, or creating art:

How do you know when an idea is worth committing real time and resources to?

I'd love to hear how others think about this.