Why you shouldn’t worry about people stealing your idea
The biggest fear of the Tech Entreprener in Africa, well at least most of the many I have met, is that if they share their idea with people, someone is going to steal it. This is how I used to feel a few years ago but the longer I stay in the game, the more I learn that keeping your idea secret so that no one else will steal it is pointless, and that an idea alone it holds no value (so you can't expect to be able to sell it either) .
Don't get me wrong here: I'm not saying that Intellectual Property protection is not an important issue. It is but the best way of protecting your idea is by building implementation of it than anyone else. The reason for that is that execution is by far the harder part of any venture. And here's why:
1. Your idea is worthless
As Derek Sivers so brilliantly put it: the most brilliant idea in the world with no execution is only worth $20.
The first thing every entrepreneur should know is that: “Ideas are worth nothing. What matters is the execution. And execution is (almost) everything.”. In the global, connected world we live in, there is an overabundance of startup ideas. The value of a startup is therefore created not from the idea, but from the execution of that idea and all those hours put into making the idea come to life.
2. You may need to think about pitching to invetors
And no serious professional investor will sign any kind of NDA and the reason for that is because it would completely hogtie them from operating their business.
The large VC funds receive 5,000 - 10,000 business plans each year, and probably 90% of them are duplicative (remember, even that would leave you with 500 - 1,000 completely unique ideas, which simply doesn't happen.)
They won't to agree to sign an NDA with you because they know that another another company with a similar business plan may come along and so they, at best, will have to constantly self-censor to remember what they can talk about with their portfolio company, and at worst, they are putting a big sign on the door saying "Sue Me!".
For that reason, VCs and serious angels will simply not sign NDAs, and asking one to is a hallmark of an amateur entrepreneur.
3. Your idea is probably going to have changed by the time it goes to market
Most likely, the idea doesn't work the way you have imagined until and unless, you have done a resourceful research. When you finally take the implementation of your idea to market, you shall be constantly going through a process of discovering and validating the right market for your idea, building the right product features that solve customers’ needs, testing the correct model and tactics for acquiring and converting customers, and deploying the right organization and resources to scale the business. This process is known as Customer Development.
In the end, what you end up with is something very different from the idea you had originally.
4. If your idea is going to be the next big thing, it's probably too ridiculous for people to take seriously anyway.
If you don’t believe this, put yourself in the shoes of the VCs who first heard the following ideas (which were originally put by Michael Wolfe on Quora) and tell us in the comments below if you would have invested in them:
· Facebook - the world needs yet another Myspace or Friendster except several years late. We'll only open it up to a few thousand overworked, anti-social, Ivy Leaguers. Everyone else will then join since Harvard students are so cool.
· Dropbox - we are going to build a file sharing and syncing solution when the market has a dozen of them that no one uses, supported by big companies like Microsoft. It will only do one thing well, and you'll have to move all of your content to use it.
· Amazon - we'll sell books online, even though users are still scared to use credit cards on the web. Their shipping costs will eat up any money they save. They'll do it for the convenience, even though they have to wait a week for the book.
· Virgin Atlantic - airlines are cool. Let's start one. How hard could it be? We'll differentiate with a funny safety video and by not being a**holes.
· Mint - give us all of your bank, brokerage, and credit card information. We'll give it back to you with nice fonts. To make you feel richer, we'll make them green.
· Palantir - we'll build arcane analytics software, put the company in California, hire a bunch of new college grad engineers, many of them immigrants, hire no sales reps, and close giant deals with D.C.-based defense and intelligence agencies!
· Craigslist - it will be ugly. It will be free. Except for the hookers.
· iOS - a brand new operating system that doesn't run a single one of the millions of applications that have been developed for Mac OS, Windows, or Linux. Only Apple can build apps for it. It won't have cut and paste.
· Google - we are building the world's 20th search engine at a time when most of the others have been abandoned as being commoditized money losers. We'll strip out all of the ad-supported news and portal features so you won't be distracted from using the free search stuff.
· Github - software engineers will pay monthly fees for the rest of their lives in order to create free software out of other free software!
· PayPal - people will use their insecure AOL and Yahoo email addresses to pay each other real money, backed by a non-bank with a cute name run by 20-somethings.
· Paperless Post - we are like Evite, except you pay us. All of your friends will know that you are an idiot.
· Instagram - filters! That's right, we got filters!
· LinkedIn - how about a professional social network, aimed at busy 30- and 40-somethings. They will use it once every 5 years when they go job searching.
· Tesla - instead of just building batteries and selling them to Detroit, we are going to build our own cars from scratch plus own the distribution network. During a recession and a cleantech backlash.
· SpaceX - if NASA can do it, so can we! It ain't rocket science.
· Firefox - we are going to build a better web browser, even though 90% of the world's computers already have a free one built in. One guy will do most of the work.
· Twitter - it is like email, SMS, or RSS. Except it does a lot less. It will be used mostly by geeks at first, followed by Britney Spears and Charlie Sheen.
· Fedex - We're going to buy a fleet of jet airplanes, the biggest-ticket items in the world and we're going to fly every package through Memphis even if they're going across the street
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