

Hypothetical Question regarding Intellectual Property/NDAs - moonman

How do I ensure that the evaluators of the Y  Combinator application do not steal my intellectual property? Especially in the event that the initial application is rejected for reasons not relating to the viability of the idea itself.  <p>Is there an implied non disclose agreement/non compete agreement on the part of the evaluators when they evaluate the vast number of intellectual property submitted to them?
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jsjenkins168
This question is covered in the YC FAQ: <http://ycombinator.com/faq.html>

They wont sign an NDA (apparently this is common among investors), but they
wont steal your idea either. Even if they did, ideas are only as good as how
they are executed. By themselves ideas are worth very little (look at Facebook
vs. ConnectU), especially in the early stages since they change a lot.

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moonman
That's true, no idea by itself is sufficient to becoming successful unless
there is solid execution/implementation. However, in the case of startups that
are "inventing" a product instead of making something existing better the
initial idea becomes the "moneymaker". Startups applying for YCombinator to
improve on an existing product (social networking, social news, finance
softwares) don't have to worry about giving away an idea that they have been
brainstorming for months. They primarily are banking on the fact that their
approach is solid and the engineering of the product is high quality (no easy
task either).

The idea is a very necessary factor, but yes not by itself sufficient. The
Paul Graham article "How to Start a Startup" assumes that a startup is only
developing something to improve on an existing idea/technology.

A startup inventing a product would be taking a huge leap of faith by
believing that a power broker like Y Combinator would not be tempted to (in
the event they came across an idea that they felt was revolutionary) to not
farm out the engineering/business dev to seasoned developers; especially if
they lacked faith in the approach/abilities of the founders. After all the
process of execution/development is pretty much a commodity task.

~~~
pg
> "How to Start a Startup" assumes that a startup is only developing something
> to improve on an existing idea/technology.

No it doesn't.

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moonman
Maybe not--but the article is written in a way to minimize the importance of a
good idea. Read below:

"In particular, you don't need a brilliant idea to start a startup around. The
way a startup makes money is to offer people better technology than they have
now. But what people have now is often so bad that it doesn't take brilliance
to do better.

Google's plan, for example, was simply to create a search site that didn't
suck. They had three new ideas: index more of the Web, use links to rank
search results, and have clean, simple web pages with unintrusive keyword-
based ads. Above all, they were determined to make a site that was good to
use. No doubt there are great technical tricks within Google, but the overall
plan was straightforward. And while they probably have bigger ambitions now,
this alone brings them a billion dollars a year." (How to Start a Startup)

Sure, search engines sucked (algorithm-wise) before Google but the
concept/idea of a technology to aggregate links by relevance, was pretty
critical to Google's existence, IMHO.

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Ultrapreneur
I've pitched a few ideas/products to VC's in the past, and although you're
sharing the next big thing with them if they don't invest they're not going to
steal your idea.

why you ask? it's simple... no respectable VC company wants to be known as the
company that stole "your name here"'s idea. imagin what would happen if word
get out that they stole someones idea after hearing their pitch. nobody would
ever pitch to them again.

when all else fails.. use the "poor mans patent" print off your code, idea,
etc. and register mail it to yourself, but don't open it. in case you ever
need proof you have it... signed, dated, and stamped.

