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Follow on TwitterSooner or later you’re going to have to share your idea with other people. You might be looking for a business partner, an investor, a supplier or even customers and you’re going to have to tell them all about your business if you want to succeed. In fact the more people you can tell and the quicker you can spread the word about your business the quicker it’ll get funded, get noticed and win customers, assuming of course that it’s a good idea.
Yes ok, I’m sure you think your business idea is the best thing since sliced bread and worth millions too. Get real! You’re probably not a genius and your business idea is probably not all that great. If it is brilliant, then the chances are someone else has thought of it too. Trust me, even if you really are “one in a million” there are still at least 6,650 other people on earth that are as smart as you.
Even if your idea is great, every man and his dog are not going to rush to steal your idea. Like you, they’ve got their own ideas which no doubt they think are just as great, if not better. So why would they want your idea and not theirs?
Besides if your idea is so simple that they can easily steal it, it’s almost certainly not a good idea.
The reality is, it’s impossible to protect a business idea. Yes I’m aware of the concept of Non Disclosure Agreements (NDAs), but if you’re looking for investors you’ll soon find out that few (if any) serious investors will sign them. Besides even if they do sign an NDA and then steal your idea, can you really afford to pursue them legally?
On the other hand, while you cannot get legal protection for your idea, you can get legal protection for your implementation of the idea through the use of copyright, design rights, trademarks and patents. So if you still want to protect your idea, focus on the execution and make sure you protect that.
For those sceptics, have a think about Google, the idea behind it is simple and the idea was widely shared including being published in a couple of academic papers The PageRank Citation Ranking: Bringing Order to the Web and The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine written by Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page. They went on to turn the idea into a company worth billions of dollars by focusing on the execution of their idea. Meanwhile, despite the idea being public no one has managed to copy Google. That’s because their implementation is well protected, they have a good brand (protected by trademarks), they’ve got patents on all their core technology and the details of the specific implementation of the search engine are kept secret.
So don’t keep the idea secret, shout it out to the world and protect the execution of the idea.
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This blog is about business opportunities and ideas that I spot, think of or hear about and think are useful and interesting. It is intended to provide ideas and inspriation for you to help you find the right business idea for you to then grow it into a successful business.
Its unfortunate that new ideas cannot be protected. I was told NDA’s dont stand up as they will just tell you that they have seen the idea before. In some instances its better not to tell too many people and keep it under wraps, thanks Goran
I disagree I think protecting ideas would stifle innovation which would hurt society in general. So shout your ideas from the rooftops – the only thing worth protecting is your implementation of the idea.
If you aren’t implementing any of your ideas, then you are just opening up the doors for others to take them! I agree with John on that how you implement you ideas is worth protecting.
I just wouldn’t let all of my secrets out of the bag until things were rolling, shouting them from the rooftops just might let a few too many people know.
On the other hand the more people that know, the more people that could become customers or investors etc., some might introduce you to customer, investors, lenders, suppliers, distributors etc. etc.