

But what if they steal my idea? - jonlegend
http://blog.findthetechguy.com/but-what-if-they-steal-my-idea/

======
ChuckMcM
This is a remarkably common meme. Let me share a bit of Battlebots history -
perhaps it will help.

Back when Battlebots was a going thing, they would have a competition which
started on Tuesday (preliminaries) and ran through Sunday (finals). One could
generalize about the teams as two types, people who shared information and
people who didn't.

A common theme amongst the people who didn't share information was that they
didn't want competitors "stealing their ideas, or developing counter measures
before the match." They would go to great lengths to "hide" things (covering
their robots, not talking about them, etc) and they would invariably lose. (in
the 3 years we went I don't think a single "secret" team moved into the
finals)

Information sharers on the other hand were communicative almost to a fault,
they would tell you EVERYTHING about their creation, how long it took to
build, why they think it could win, what they thought was key in various
fights, etc, etc. Curiously, they often won their matches.

Spotting this trend early in my Battlebots 'career' I sought to understand the
mechanism behind it.

The answer turned out to be ideas in a vacuum suck. (pun intended) Basically
any idea, no matter how great, when it comes from an individual without anyone
else thinking about it, there are going to be all sorts of problems with it.
Because everyone thinks about things a bit differently, by saying "Hey, I've
got this idea, what do you think?" you gather alternative points of view which
always shed more light on the idea than you had originally. Can that douse
your passion? Sure. But it can inflame it too.

I wondered about 'stealing' as well, if these folks are giving away their
ideas why aren't they being stolen left and right? The insight there was that
people who _can_ execute on ideas, well they have a bazillion already, more
often than not their problem is choosing rather than coming up with something.
They don't steal ideas because if they did they wouldn't have time to get to
it for a while and by then you probably already did it. The folks who don't
have any ideas of their own, they generally can't execute for squat, further,
not being someone who could develop the idea in the first place, and thus not
being able to 'grow' it as you would be sharing it and listening to the
feedback, they can't pull it off either.

So where does that leave us? The old saw that ideas are a dime a dozen?

Ideas are seeds, they are not process. For all the ideas I've seen go from
conception to production, the actual idea part was not a statistically
significant part of executing on it. Some didn't emerge as recognizable from
the original concept. So generally, worrying about someone stealing your idea
is overrated, worrying that you aren't up to the task of executing on your own
idea, _that_ is worth worrying about.

~~~
alexophile
On a (kind of) related note, there's the story of Freddie Keppard.

Freddie was, by most accounts, paranoid - he was an incredibly talented
musician but he was always afraid someone was trying to steal his material.
People say he even played with a handkerchief over his fingers to conceal the
notes he was playing. Because of this, the people that do remember him
remember him as the guy who turned down the offer to be the first ever
recorded jazz artist.

The Victor Talking Machine Company (makers of the Victrola) then made the
offer to The Original Dixieland Jazz Band.

The record sold a million copies... in 1917.

------
spolsky
If you're really passionate about your idea, you just want it to exist. It's
almost a chore to be the one to create it yourself. For years I tried to get
people to steal the idea for Stack Overflow and just build the damn thing so I
didn't have to see Experts Exchange in the search results ever again.

If your whole attitude towards the idea is "this thing can make me rich" then
you may not be passionate enough to be an entrepreneur.

~~~
fossuser
I agree, the concern over 'idea-theft' shouldn't be a real issue. If it is, I
find it unlikely that the person with the idea will end up executing it
anyway.

~~~
barista
The way I think about it is that if the idea is so good then you should rather
go implement it. There are many advantages here. First, by implementing you
can validate a lot of assumptions you made. Second you got some experience in
the area and likely know a bit more and your idea is more refined.

Because what's worse than someone stealing your idea: to see someone who had a
similar idea as yours and they have already implemented it. It happened to me
a couple of times and since then I just start thinking about how I am going to
execute on my idea the moment I feel striongly about something.

~~~
wildhopper
Its really nice to see so many people agreeing on putting your idea out there.
I am in the process of building a web portal (<http://friendvestment.com>)
that allows people to share their ideas/startups looking for
financial/technical partners. While building, one of my main fears was that
most of the new people will worry about sharing their "big" idea and ask for
security, etc for their ideas. But the fact that an idea has zero value if it
is just an idea, seems to be resonating a lot these days through people...

------
bravura
"Don't worry about people stealing an idea. If it's original, you will have to
ram it down their throats." -Howard Aiken (the original conceptual designer
behind IBM's Harvard Mark I computer)

~~~
code_duck
That's true for absolute blockbuster ideas. Ideas that are merely good,
slightly novel or clever yet are good enough to form the basis of a lucrative
business probably don't have to be fought for as much.

------
Cherian_Abraham
Two things:

First, some one else who overhears your idea may not exactly share your
enthusiasm, even a competitor. It all depends on whether they see it as being
equally groundbreaking as you do. Which may be good or bad, considering how
informed you are.

Secondly, even if they do steal your idea, the end result could be quite
different. Just like two people hearing a story and taking away two different
interpretations of it, so shall two people who start with an idea, arrive at
two totally different implementations of it.

Ideas are inherently cheap. The determination to bring it to the people, the
team behind the idea and some amount of luck all play a more important part
than the idea itself. Which is why YC looks more at the team dynamic and your
perseverance than the idea itself (which is not to say that they dont).

~~~
TillE
> the end result could be quite different

Exactly. Notch (of Minecraft fame) recently expressed a desire to make a game
that's something like a fantasy RPG version of Football Manager. I'm really,
really tempted to steal the idea and make something with it.

Because I know that whatever I make with that simple core idea will be utterly
unlike someone else's creation with the same idea. It's just a germ of
inspiration; all the important details still need to be worked out and
actually implemented. It's probably not true for every market, but similar
games can happily coexist unless they're really identical clones.

~~~
jarin
That idea already exists too:

<http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2008/03/wiiware-impre-6/>

It's incredibly addictive, but after playing it for a while you start to run
into the limitations of the game. If you could make it better and play up the
indie cred you'd have a hit on your hands.

------
PaulHoule
The field of invention attracts a lot of paranoid kooks who will die in
obscurity because they won't connect with people to validate and develop their
ideas.

I know a guy who's invented a cat toilet and thinks that he invented the white
LED and got cheated of the discovery because somebody stole a suitcase out of
his car in Manhattan.

If somebody's got an idea and they don't want to talk about it, I start to
suspect that there are mental health problems involved, and I'll make sure to
steer clear.

~~~
drpancake
Mental health problems is a bit presumptuous I think! Keeping an idea under
wraps is pretty standard behaviour, albeit misguided in many cases

~~~
PaulHoule
There's stuff I don't talk about, but it's operational stuff, not basic
concepts.

------
taylorbuley
A decent metaphor for an NDA at startup might be asking someone to sign a
prenup on your first date.

------
lwhi
The question isn't what if they steal my idea, it's 'what if they're better at
_____ than I am?'.

~~~
Dylanlacey
Then if you have any honor as a maker of things and a doer of stuff, you'll
appreciate that your new thinkstuff was given a chance to become greater then
you could ever make it.

I think you're exactly right that a number of people think this. It certainly
crosses my mind before I bully myself into not being so pathetic... Lots of
people are better at stuff then me, and the reverse is also true.

~~~
lwhi
I agree that worrying whether people are smarter or more naturally gifted than
you might be is fruitless.

There's something quite magical involved in making things - pure aptitude
isn't a good measure for success.

But I do think it's worth worrying about covering bases and thinking ahead.
Have a plan - make sure that you'll be progressing faster than your
competitor, that you'll be working harder than your competitor.

If you have the initial idea - you also potentially have the spark that makes
it magical. A copycat won't.

------
rcamera
I have been exactly in this situation. I had an idea a few months ago, which
has a great potential. My problems were the same, I don't have the necessary
coding skills to turn it into reality. I needed a cofounder, and I too, had a
chance of getting my idea stolen.

But I managed to overcome this. I knew I simply couldn't approach and pitch
every coder I knew, because after all, it is just an idea, I had to bring
something else to the table. Instead, after I pitched a few people (risking
the idea, I know, but I had to) and after I thought I was ready, I went after
an angel. I was lucky that the first angel I pitched the idea offered me help.
He didn't try to find me a cofounder or incentivate me to code, his help was
much different.

At first, his help was actually questioning the idea itself. I had to think
and address the questions he raised. He also pointed me towards a couple books
(The 4 Steps to Epyphany and Business Model Generation), which have been
helping me alot (this is my first entrepreneurship). After those first steps,
he asked for a market research that should show if the market had potential or
not. I didn't even know how to do that, took me a while, but the result was
very positive, he was surprised by the quality of it.

Anyway, there is a limit how far one can go without having coding skills, and
I knew my limit was close, I needed a cofounder soon, so after that research,
I went to pitch a friend of mine, giving him a copy of the presentation I did.
He was surprised by the research, and the fact I already had an angel
interested and one that was actually investing time on me (we had 4 meetings
at that time already, and I think I can say that time is more expensive than
money for them). I guess that this, and the fact that the idea grew alot from
the first time I pitched him (he was one of those first few people that I
trained my pitching) convinced him to join me in this entrepreneurship.

We are currently assembling our beta team and just started development. We are
also applying to YC!

If you are thinking that I actually pitched a friend of mine, so I didn't had
the whole "trust issue", I am actually living in Brazil, and my friend is in
the US. We never actually met face to face before this. We used to play a game
together, over 4 years ago, and kept in touch since then. All I knew about him
was that he was an excellent person and coder. We just had some interesting
values and other interests in common.

------
bpeters
This is why YC looks at the team dynamic and the individuals to determine
which teams to fund and help. All good ideas are worthless without proper
execution and superior knowledge in the subject matter.

------
mmalik
After reading this article, I reread the relevant portion of Jim Collins'
"Good to Great". His point (proven by many, many examples) is that being first
out of the gate is rarely a sustainable advantage. The key is being the best -
learning from not only your mistakes, but the mistakes of those before you.

I found a summarized version of this chapter on his website...

[http://www.jimcollins.com/article_topics/articles/best-
beats...](http://www.jimcollins.com/article_topics/articles/best-beats-
first.html)

------
Stevenup7002
Execution is what matters. You can turn the greatest idea into the stupidest
product in the world if you're not careful.

~~~
underwood
It's all about the execution not NDAs.

------
chr15
This is how I judge whether someone is an experienced entrepreneur or not. New
entrepreneurs keep ideas to themselves. Experienced ones are much more open
about them. I used to keep my ideas to myself, but learned that it does more
harm than good. If you can trust people, they won't trust you.

------
bfe
There's also the option to file a patent application or otherwise build
intellectual property protection where appropriate, as a supplement to trying
to execute as well and as rapidly as possible.

------
InclinedPlane
It's not a what if, when you're idea hits the market people who want to will
"steal" it.

The better question is: how do I survive when my idea is public?

~~~
metageek
Yes, that's in the article:

> _If your idea is good enough, competitors will pop and try to crush you._

