How to keep your idea secret during the prototype development?

[puente]

Hi there!

In the starting phase, if you hire someone for some months, how can you avoid the following scenarios?

1.He steals the code and found with it his own start-up.

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.

Does the same solution apply to people you subcontract (abroad or not) for doing some specific portion of the prototype?

How could I maintain the business idea secret till the product is lunched?

Thanks for all comments and suggestions!

[rmah]

You can't. Get over it.

[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).

[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.

[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.

[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.