Entrepreneurs, inventors and founders are often reluctant to share their big idea because they are worried about somebody ripping it off and getting there first.
In today’s world this seems a legitimate concern. However, I don’t agree. I believe that if you are too guarded about your idea it can hinder your progress and even stop it becoming a product.
A core tenet of innovation is taking ideas and inspiration from other sources which you can apply to your own idea to make it better. Innovation, just like any business, is a team sport.
Ideas, especially early concepts or notions, need refining, reworking and reshaping before they evolve into great ideas that you can then make into a product.
As there is nothing new under the sun, there’s a fair chance that your idea, or a similar one, has been tried before and there is valuable information and people to learn from.
If you are too reluctant to share your idea, you may find yourself struggling to find the right advice to develop your idea and help you take the next step.
The quickest way to do that is to solicit feedback from people who have developed similar ideas and are willing to help you – either pro bono or for a fee.
I firmly believe that a genuine advisor or mentor that is willing to help you will NOT be looking to steal your idea. They will be too busy with their own concerns!
Critically, an advisor cannot help you if you don’t tell them enough about what it is you are doing. This tendency to hold back key information could lead to poor or misleading advice.
There are steps that you can take to safeguard your idea whilst sharing enough to get the right help:
- Ask for referrals to advisors from people you know and trust – often people will only seriously recommend somebody because they trust them. This establishes a strong chain of trust between all parties.
- Paint a picture of your idea using a simple diagram or sketches – if there’s some magic sauce or secret formula that you don’t want to reveal then just label it as a black box.
- Don’t share any source code or design files – to share technical details about a SW or HW solution use demo apps, screenshots or ‘dumb’ 3D file viewers instead.
- Find a safe environment – accelerator programs or incubators are great forums to meet other founders and share ideas openly which often yields
- Don’t just rely non-disclosure agreements – NDAs do not guarantee anything, check the bona fides of the advisor or ask for referrals from people you trust. If you can’t establish their credentials, find somebody else.
If you’re still reluctant to share your idea, remember that whilst somebody could copy your idea, they cannot copy YOU.
Ideas need vision and huge amounts of belief, passion, experience and personal relationships to make them happen. Nobody can steal any of those from you!
