Every entrepreneur (or woulda-coulda-shoulda entrepreneur…) knows this feeling:
The idea you have is so fundamentally amazing, that it will most probably be stolen and copied by the first person you talk to about it.
Now you have to start building your team and getting investors, but you don’t want to tell people about the idea without an NDA, because they will steal it of course.
And that sucks big time. NDA’s are terrible for many reasons, but the biggest is that it makes the signer of the NDA take a pretty big risk without knowing what he’s about to hear. It’s hardly a smart way to get the trust and passion from someone you really want on your team. Instead you get fear ("am I now forever in risk of getting sued just for listening to this stupid idea?") and resentment ("well – obviously I am a suspected idea thief around this table…").
Therefore my suggestion to all entrepreneurs is – dump your NDA’s and rely on the FrieNDA[1]. The execution of the FrieNDA is extremely simple – it is basically a handshake accompanied by a request to keep the discussion confidential and not go and steal the ideas. That’s it. Not only does this ensure better karma between the two of you, it is also much cheaper than an NDA!
Because these are the truths:
- No one is going to steal your idea[2]. In fact, if your company is eventually successful, your original idea will only be one tiny contributing factor. And the guy you’re talking to can’t steal the 99,999 other reasons that will make your company a success (persistence, luck, people you hire, etc, etc, etc).
- The NDA Paradox: An NDA is useless if the guy you’re talking to cannot be trusted, and is needless if the guy you’re talking to can be. So instead of asking people to sign an NDA that is either useless or needless, try to talk only to people you trust and handshake a FrieNDA with them.
The idea is the only thing you’ve got to try to get good people excited about your vision. You have to spread it around if you want to get stuff moving. And the best way to do that is by creating mutual trust through the wonderful tool that is the FrieNDA[3] .
I hope my lawyer ain’t reading this blog… 😉
[1] NDA’s have their time and place of course. After trust has been achieved and the person you’re talking to is excited about the idea and wants to dive into the nuts & bolts, it’s a good time to cover the bases with an NDA. But for initial discussions about your grand idea, an NDA is bad bad bad.
[2] OK – there are exceptions. I would NOT recommend pitching your idea to a room full of hawking Google engineers, for example.
[3] I’m not sure who I should give credit to for this word, but I’m
pretty sure I heard it from someone rather than invented it myself
(whoever deserves credit – feel free to claim it in the comments below!)
This post is about one of the coolest startups I bumped into recently called 
Organic Valley produces organic milk. They claim that “Organic dairy farmers do not use any chemical pesticides or fertilizers on their land. This protects our soil, water and air resources and also protects the health of wildlife and people.”
