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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?

#41

Post by aterris »

While this article was more about web, it immediately made me think of the game industry. So many people would always tell me they wanted to get into the game industry to be the "idea guy" and come up with games.

What they never seemed to understand is that coming up with ideas is not the hard part. The real hard part is finding time, skills and actually shipping. Hell, take a 20 person game dev company, and they could come up with 100 game ideas before the end of the day, and they will be just as good and original as the idea guys (probably better actually since they have more context and experience)

We (atleast I) became developers because we had ideas and we wanted to make those a reality. I literally have had hundreds of web and game ideas and so has every other developer.

We are in an "idea bubble"... There are far too many people who cannot create, and simply have ideas, and we can already see this starting to erode when you examine how hard it is for "idea founders" to get others to work on their project.

No developer anywhere has said "If I just had an idea of something to do"

Re: Re. No NDAs: What Should Idea People Do?

#42

Post by HarpuaCom »

I truly believe that the only way to put the "NDA or no NDA" question to bed is to have every single person out there try to execute on an idea. Only until you've done it once do you realize the infinitesimal odds of having an idea, telling someone, them executing on it and making it big while the same experiment carried out with the only variable changed being not telling them would have resulted in you making it big.

NDAs are meant for investors/strategics who want access to real, sensitive and actionable data. Not a couple of folks in a bar batting around ideas.

Re: Re. No NDAs: What Should Idea People Do?

#43

Post by ScottBurson »

wpietri wrote: post #28
dhimes wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

pretty much a copy of http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3868084 , but: The case of having ideas when you don't know anything, I think we all agree, is silly for having a "secret sauce." The more interesting discussion is what to do when you have an idea and you know a helluva lot? This is the case where I think you have to be careful. Yes, ideas without execution aren't worth much- but if your executable idea lands…

If you have that much depth of knowledge, then I think the idea is going to have similar depth. In which case you come up with a short summary that doesn't give away any of the key insights. But even if you're generous with information, the idea probably isn't at that much risk. The idea would have to end up in the hands of somebody who not only could out-execute you, but also has the time and interest to do so, is s…

I think that last sentence deserves emphasis. There's a lot of "NIH syndrome" ("Not Invented Here") around -- and the deeper someone's domain knowledge, the more likely they are to suffer from it.

Re: Re. No NDAs: What Should Idea People Do?

#44

Post by vibrunazo »

sophacles wrote: post #35
javajosh wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The grandpost is brilliant. But that comment assumes that ideas and execution are independent variables, which is not the case.

Thanks! Can you expand on this notion that ideas and execution are not independent? What I think you're suggesting is that the act of executing (or attempting to execute) will add data to the process of what is good or bad about a particular idea, and perhaps provide hooks for new thoughts/improvements to that idea. Is this accurate?

I think that's just semantic misunderstanding. Some people name as "idea" the combination of concept + execution proposal. Other's name "idea" as the concept alone. I don't think there's a right or wrong here, people just have different opinions of how to call what.

Personally, for practical purposes and pushing myself forward, I prefer calling idea something that has a clear execution strategy. If you have a brilliant concept but not sure how to put it in practice. Then in my opinion you got half an idea, and should work on the other half.

Re: Re. No NDAs: What Should Idea People Do?

#45

Post by OzzyB »

Do NDAs usually come with a time limit? i.e. if you sign that NDA it becomes null & void, in say, 6/12/36 months?

I think one of the main reasons folks are adverse to signing NDAs, especially the "my idea is so great that I must protect it" kind, is that if I sign too many of them I effectively put myself outta business.

If I knew that a particular NDA would "time-out" in 12 months, I might be more inclined to sign; since if it does turn out to be yet another "photo sharing app, but for dwarfs" type deal -- I'm not going to be legally binded forever.

One last thing, I totally understand the need and desire for NDAs by orgs that actually have existing IP that they want to protect; but alas alot of these NDA requests are made in the ideation phase...

Re: Re. No NDAs: What Should Idea People Do?

#46

Post by drewrv »

If you're unwilling to code, tell a developer what your idea is, tell him/her what you bring to the table (other than "ideas"), and offer the dev a generous share of the revenue and equity(for a two person team, at least 40%).

There is no reason for them to try and compete with you when they could work with you.

Re: Re. No NDAs: What Should Idea People Do?

#47

Post by rahim »

OzzyB wrote: post #45

Do NDAs usually come with a time limit? i.e. if you sign that NDA it becomes null & void, in say, 6/12/36 months? I think one of the main reasons folks are adverse to signing NDAs, especially the "my idea is so great that I must protect it" kind, is that if I sign too many of them I effectively put myself outta business. If I knew that a particular NDA would "time-out" in 12 months, I might be more inclined to sign;…

Most NDAs have such a period stated in the contract. However, every now and then, you come across one that doesn't. (I just received one earlier this week that did not explicitly state one.) So, as always, read everything before you sign!

Re: Re. No NDAs: What Should Idea People Do?

#48

Post by vessenes »

vibrunazo wrote: post #44
sophacles wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks! Can you expand on this notion that ideas and execution are not independent? What I think you're suggesting is that the act of executing (or attempting to execute) will add data to the process of what is good or bad about a particular idea, and perhaps provide hooks for new thoughts/improvements to that idea. Is this accurate?

I think that's just semantic misunderstanding. Some people name as "idea" the combination of concept + execution proposal. Other's name "idea" as the concept alone. I don't think there's a right or wrong here, people just have different opinions of how to call what. Personally, for practical purposes and pushing myself forward, I prefer calling idea something that has a clear execution strategy. If you have a brillia…

Yes, exactly. This is a more nicely stated version of what I was thinking.

Re: Re. No NDAs: What Should Idea People Do?

#49

Post by its_so_on »

ryguytilidie wrote: post #36

Does anyone else hate the term "idea people". To me that implies someone thinks that having an idea and no skill to execute is a legitimate profession where people should make money. I might be overreacting, but it feels like people see the VC cash flowing, have no discernible skills and think they deserve a payoff for a mediocre idea.

The term "idea man" is a pejorative, and as someone who appreciates what Google became from being a handful of servers running a novel set of algorithms as described here:

http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html (the original paper was actually longer)

I appreciate idea men in a way no one who uses the term "idea man" does or can.

Re: Re. No NDAs: What Should Idea People Do?

#50

Post by TomGullen »

wpietri wrote: post #11
TomGullen wrote: post #3

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. If you get the patent you have something you can sell and once you do you've effectively made money from your idea.

A patent is a lot more than an idea. Patents cover inventions. Originally, they required you to hand over a working model to get a patent. Take the idea "a good pocket lighter". That's not patentable. Now take a look at the patent for the Zippo lighter: http://www.google.com/patents/US2032695 Note the detailed diagrams and the careful description of the purposes of the various bits. You don't get that kind of detail…

So what is the definition of 'an idea' when people say ideas are worthless?
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