

The Founder Paradox - should you share your idea?  - allanscu
http://www.ycreject.com/2011/05/founder-paradox-should-you-share-your.html

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masterzora
This was one of the earliest things I was taught about entrepreneurship, and
it's been beat into my head over time: share your bloody idea. With damn near
everyone who'll listen. Your idea is worthless; it's the execution that
matters (we already know that here, of course). However, there are two reasons
the idea is worthless. We're all used to the "if you aren't executing you have
nothing with which to make money" reason, but the other reason is that
somebody else already has your idea, almost certainly. The less earth-
shattering it is, the more likely somebody else has the same idea, of course,
but even some of the earth shattering ideas are floating around other peoples'
heads. Thus, the goal isn't to keep a secret, but rather to get the
information out to whoever can help you with the resources you need to ship,
whether it's connecting you with developers, designers, investors, whatever,
or simply providing you with essential feedback.

I'd be willing to wager that more projects have been killed from this sort of
paranoia-fueled secret keeping than by people stealing ideas.

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rick888
This isn't necessarily a good idea.

If you share it with someone that has the resources to build it faster than
you, it's just going to create headaches for you in the future.

So, it's a good idea to share the generic idea, but not the specifics.

One of the businesses I'm running now (which is profitable) spawned from an
idea I saw on a message board about 6 months ago. I knew the original
implementation of the idea would never work and I improved on it. It's a
direct competitor to the original person that posted it.

~~~
masterzora
I don't think your first sentence really matches the rest of what you're
saying.

Obviously I'm not telling you to pull out your full spec and implementation
roadmap to discuss with everyone on the street. But you _should_ be willing to
share the core idea in a way that anyone can understand. The "what", not the
"how", essentially.

You can always divulge more if someone shows interest in helping you out, but
you have to garner that interest by being willing to tell them something.

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illeto
No paradox: Yes.

Your network will start working for you only if you share your idea. You will
be surprised how many people come of the woodwork to say, "Oh, I heard you are
interested in this space - I have this person you should talk to; I read this
report on your market; I have this angel you should meet..."

You are afraid someone will steal your idea? Don't flatter yourself so much.
You can be sure there are 5 other people other there at the same time who have
a very similar idea. Ideas are cheap; it is only execution that matters. And
there is no way you can best execute on your idea without getting all the
feedback you can get and finding all the resources your network can provide
you.

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mindcrime
I don't necessarily share every little detail of my future plans, or what I'm
thinking... but in general I fall into the bucket of people who believe in
being very open and transparent. And since the stuff I'm building is open
source anyway, there are few - if any - secrets from a technical perspective.

