> was he certain he could figure out the statistics... I feel like you need to get a rough idea of that much at least before you start pitching.

I disagree. The latter is a huge investment. You're not burning any bridges by asking if something would be useful even if you don't know if you can do it yet.

Of course even this is a wrong framing. Ideally he'd actually have sold the idea, by which I mean have actually taken money for the idea, before building it.

Then, if he couldn't build it, he could give the money back.