Advice from the many corners of the web seems to be polarised on how free you should feel to talk to people about your “big idea“. Both sides make valid points and take an extreme position to prove a point. Is there a middle ground?
Share-widely camp.
1. Without the idea there is nothing, but execution is everything. There will be plenty of people in the world with the same idea, and success will come to those that have the passion, capacity, and persistence to execute on it. Also, beyond trying your smartest and hardest, much of a venture’s success will just be up to timing or dumb luck.
2. You’re idea won’t develop without talking about it. You need early validation, either from your customers (ideally), or peers (often not critical enough). You will reinforce internal biases if you keep on talking to nobody but yourself.
3. Don’t bother with non-disclosure agreements (NDAs). Investors won’t sign them anyway. They won’t take the liablity exposure by signing your NDA on the off-chance they’re already incubating the same idea with another one of their ventures.
Keep-it-to-yourself camp.
1. You’re idea is valuable and unique. If it wasn’t, then why hasn’t it been executed on before now? The answer may be that it’s a dud idea, it may be that it’s servicing an only recently realised painpoint, or it may be that the market/technology has just evolved sufficiently for it to work. Why risk letting someone else benefit from your ability to generate a good idea? Good ideas are not a dime a dozen.
2. Bother with NDAs. An investor who knows enough about your idea to be interested (and probably enough to realise they’re not invested in a similar space) will bother signing. Anyone else is not interested or serious enough and you should look elsewhere. Here is an example of a VC that signs NDAs, and why.
Devil in the detail?
There is undoubtedly a middle ground as there are plenty of examples where protected ideas have contributed to sustainable competitive advantage, and examples of valuable companies built on branding, story, and customer/distribution networks alone. Most straightforward web-startups with no novel technology to patent probably fit into the latter category and are much better off just getting on with it and executing.
If its not a straightforward web-startup, get questions about protectable intellectual property (IP) answered quickly. How protectable is it? How much will it cost to protect? Are you better off just spending the money on getting your product out? A brief chat to a patent attorney will likely help you get this answer (although consider their vested interest in the patent path).
Getting early advice from people more experienced doers that are currently doing in a related space will no doubt help you refine your idea. Should you lose faith if they don’t get it? No, just work on your pitch. If they do get it, listen and incorporate their feedback as objectively as possible. You will likely sound like an idiot at the beginning. Don’t care, you soon won’t.
As we’re repeatedly told, there is more to IP than patents, and there is more to a business’s value than IP.
The best advice nobody disagrees with? Just go out and do it already.
I’d be interested to hear other people’s thoughts on this. Any experiences to share?
Twitter @ppeach
