Re. No NDAs: What Should Idea People Do?
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Re. No NDAs: What Should Idea People Do?
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Re: Re. No NDAs: What Should Idea People Do?
#2Spot on reply to the question.
If the person with a great idea has something (very) substantial to offer a project based upon it then they are clearly a key component of the idea execution and should not fear discussing the idea with potential partners.
If the idea is all someone has then - frankly - no-one will want to listen to the idea in any case.
Re: Re. No NDAs: What Should Idea People Do?
#3Quick question and I'm prepared to be shot down here, don't patents show that ideas are actually worth something?
Have a great idea? Patent it. Not all ideas are patentable but I'm sure some are.
If you get the patent you have something you can sell and once you do you've effectively made money from your idea.
Re: Re. No NDAs: What Should Idea People Do?
#4Oh man. You have GOT to have something more than an idea! Twitter is actually a great idea, but if they didn't have any skills in executing it then it never would have gotten big.
You have an idea. Great. There's nothing stopping someone else from having that idea. Execute the darn thing, even in a prototype form. Don't expect someone else to do the hard yards for you!
Re: Re. No NDAs: What Should Idea People Do?
#5It's very rare that I see the "my idea alone is worth money" thing from people who have built actual businesses.
I know that I would never pay for an idea alone. That's partly because it's not like we have a dearth of them. If we didn't have a new idea for the next year, that wouldn't be a problem; we have a giant backlog of excellent ideas. But we'll keep having new ideas. We're constantly looking at user experience and usage data, and ideas keep happening.
More than that, though, I don't think an idea from an inexperienced person generally has a lot of merit. With a surface understanding, I think their ideas can have only surface appeal. Once you get into the nitty-gritty of implementation, you need a lot more depth than an amateur can provide.
Imagine somebody going to a well-known chef and saying, "Hey, I don't know how to cook and I've never run a restaurant, but I go to them sometimes and I have this great idea. You should pay me 10% forever!" The would-be genius knows nothing about food costs or good staff or marketing or how to shmooze a critic. Nothing about relative real estate costs or buildouts or decorating or who to pay off to get a permit expedited. Nothing about balance sheets or seasonality of demand or tax regulations. Nothing about nothing, basically, except that they think it would be fun to go to a tiki bar/restaurant. They would be lucky if the chef doesn't answer with knife in hand.
Having ideas is easy when you don't know anything.
Re: Re. No NDAs: What Should Idea People Do?
#6No one is going to want to pay a percentage just for an idea, but an "idea person" can also easily become a business cofounder.
Sales, marketing, and raising capital are things that perhaps require less expertise than motivation and persistence, and they are things that most programmers HATE to do.
Re: Re. No NDAs: What Should Idea People Do?
#7Quick question and I'm prepared to be shot down here, don't patents show that ideas are actually worth something? Have a great idea? Patent it. Not all ideas are patentable but I'm sure some are. If you get the patent you have something you can sell and once you do you've effectively made money from your idea.
Quick question and I'm prepared to be shot down here, don't patents show that ideas are actually worth something?
Have a great idea? Patent it. Not all ideas are patentable but I'm sure some are.
I don't believe it's possible to patent an idea alone; you have to show some form of how the idea should work, and it is that which is patented. Which kinda takes us back to the central point - an idea on its own really isn't worth much unless you know what you're going to do with it :)
Re: Re. No NDAs: What Should Idea People Do?
#8Spot on reply to the question. If the person with a great idea has something (very) substantial to offer a project based upon it then they are clearly a key component of the idea execution and should not fear discussing the idea with potential partners. If the idea is all someone has then - frankly - no-one will want to listen to the idea in any case.
Absolutely agreed.
If you concede that it's all in the execution and can't make an argument for why you're the right person to see it executed -- then you've already admitted that you have nothing to offer.
Further, the idea of not trying because you're afraid the entrenched interest would crush you if they tried isn't compelling. As said before: it's all in the execution. And what they're executing is as-important as how well they do it. Entrenched interests have resources, but they also have their own overarching business strategies and goals. And those don't always align with "what people really want".
Consider: everyone assumed Dropbox had to worry about iCloud and gDrive. But if neither Apple nor Google are particularly worried about supporting the platform-agnostic, arbitrary folder sync'ing bit that Dropbox does wonderfully, they're not even true competitors. [1]
[1] Google would rather you not use your local storage at all. Apple couldn't care less about clients or API access for Linux/Windows/Android/etc. As it turns out: Dropbox has little to worry about from them.
Re: Re. No NDAs: What Should Idea People Do?
#9Quick question and I'm prepared to be shot down here, don't patents show that ideas are actually worth something? Have a great idea? Patent it. Not all ideas are patentable but I'm sure some are. If you get the patent you have something you can sell and once you do you've effectively made money from your idea.
Patents are supposed to be worth something, though many are for things that would never work and could never have worked- many of Thomas Edison's patents would have never worked by his own admission.
You can sell your widget whether you have it patented or not; all the patent does is ensure other people can't sell a knockoff widget without incurring some legal liability.
Likewise, selling widgets based on your idea and making money from your idea aren't causally related.
Re: Re. No NDAs: What Should Idea People Do?
#10Main takeaway should be this sentence:
"[In addition to the idea, bring to the table] something about how you are the best person in the world to lead its execution"
Also love the reference to the Aiken quote in the comments: “Don’t worry about people stealing an idea. If it’s original, you will have to ram it down their throats.”