I hate NDA’s!
Rainmaking receives about 10-20 potential new projects per month from entrepreneurs around Europe. The entrepreneurs and their ideas vary in quality but there are some really quality stuff in between.
Unfortunately, some of the teams insist on signing Non Disclosure Agreements (NDA’s) before they will even tell a little bit about their ideas. I have 100% respect for this if they had a pharma or biotech product, which need to be protected with IP rights, however, in most cases we are talking about very simple ideas with no chance of IP protection.
These entrepreneurs simply think they have invented the most fantastic idea in the world and now they are so afraid that someone will steal the idea. In 99% of the cases my guess is that exactly this type of persons will never succeed as entrepreneurs and I find this attitude wrong for two reasons:
1) It will be hard to sell anything if you are not willing to talk about your product/idea! And sales should start as early as possible when you develop new products and services. It is in the close interaction with your supposed customer that you will end up developing something that can turn into a success.
2) It is (almost) all about execution and the team – and not about the idea. There is therefore no reason to be so afraid of discussing your idea with other. It only helps developing it.
In Rainmaking we are very open about discussing our ideas and our experience is that this has great value. Often we can kill an idea much earlier because people we interact with can tell us why this idea will not work. And in other cases we can develop a good idea into a great one in just a few days because we discuss it with great people who each add a few good things to sharpen the idea.
/Carsten
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March 3rd, 2010 - 10:32
Sharing our ideas with others is the lifeblood of business development. it’s all about trust and taking a chance. As an entreprenur you have to be honest to you self and acknowledge that your skillset only will take you so far. Input for others are crucial.
March 3rd, 2010 - 10:47
A hearty agreement with Carsten’s view. It’s one thing to be visiting a large technology company and to be asked to sign an NDA as part of the visitor badge at reception and another thing to ask everyone to sign NDA’s before discussing ideas.
Carsten’s experience reinforces my observation that persons that are overly concerned with secrecy at the idea stage will be incapable of forming the nurturing networks to obtain feedback which is vital for viable development of the idea into a business venture.
One entrepreneur that I was working with was so paranoid that I referred him to legal counselling. After which he promptly sent me a formal legal statement to sign that I was not his employee, etc. It was so bizarre that I suggested we take a pause in our conversations and that he re-contact me when he had met some development milestones — which, of course, he never completed as his ‘idea’ was so secret he wasn’t able to implement anything.