

How to keep your idea secret during the prototype development? - puente

Hi there!<p>In the starting phase, if you hire someone for some months, how can you avoid the following scenarios?<p>1.He steals the code and found with it his own start-up.<p>2.He tells his mates, work or college colleagues and they found a similar company. Seems to be a BIG problem in the valley. There are so many other potential start-ups,  that the probability of getting copied is higher.<p>Does the same solution apply to people you subcontract (abroad or not) for doing some specific portion of the prototype?<p>How could I maintain the business idea secret till the product is lunched?<p>Thanks for all comments and suggestions!
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rmah
You can't. Get over it.

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flipside
The approach I'm taking is to make myself invaluable to the project.

At first, like you, I was scared that anybody could copy it and do it
themselves, but after revealing my idea to others, I realized they didn't "get
it" like I did. Every idea has subtleties, even something like Groupon which
has been copied to death.

I've spent hundreds of hours on improving my understanding of the problem I'm
trying to solve. Now I have the confidence that anyone smart enough to help me
execute will also see the value of working with me and not against me.

The key is to make sure everyone's interests are aligned, that's how you build
a real team. It's not what you've done in the past that counts (idea), it's
what you'll do in the future (execution).

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homecoded
You can always try an NDA. It won't keep anyone from stealing but with a bit
of luck you have a bit more meat if you want to take legal actions after
someone stole your idea.

In the end, it boils down to "an idea isn't much worth. It's the execution
that matters." Just try to be quick.

One thing that we did was, we gave all the people who started our company a
small share. With this, everyone involved in the early stages had a good
reason to keep quiet about our prototype. Worked for us. May not be the best
for every start-up though. Especially if you want to hire people abroad.

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us
An NDA means almost nothing these days. It's more of a scare tactic than
something tangible and certainly not very enforceable (at least in California)
and most people wouldn't find it worthwhile to do so. That said, there is less
and less value in an NDA among several different parties, depending who you
talk to.

The correct answer should be, assuming you already have your company entity
formed, is to get an attorney to draft up what is called a Confidentiality and
Invention Assignment Agreement. This agreement basically states that any and
all work done for the company belongs to the company. The draft is different
for employees vs contractors but can be made for each type of person you are
hiring. In it, you can detail what exactly is being done to avoid it being
stolen (IP and all). It basically has a built in NDA but goes further in
length to protect what you need.

I do agree execution is where its all at but don't worry too much about your
idea getting stolen. If it's easily ripped and you can't defend it better than
the people who steal it from you, you got bigger problems. I find that sharing
ideas to the public are often better than hiding them. I can't keep count of
the number of people and number of times I've received valuable feedback,
resources, etc... for sharing what I'm working on with random people I've met
at networking events, etc... only to gain more insight than before. Learn to
let go of the fear of sharing what you're doing to some degree. Only some
things are worth keeping private. The general premise of the idea however, is
not one of those things and you certainly don't need to map everything out to
your developer you are hiring up front to get them to build a prototype.

As for abroad, you might as well forget it. International legal battles are
fruitless unless you're talking about monumental amount of money involved and
high power. Chances are, you're definitely neither of those and you're not
going to be suing someone overseas. If you're that worried about your idea
being stolen, you got bigger issues than it actually happening.

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keiferski
Make your idea so out-of-the-box that the people with immediate skills to
implement it, won't (or can't).

What does that mean? Pick an idea that is either inherently non-technical or
requires significant non-technical work to launch. Your idea can't be stolen
if it takes a massive amount of research and pre-programming work to launch.
Most hackers (typically the people most capable of executing quickly) will try
to solve a problem technically. So, don't solve the problem technically.

