Should You Get An NDA?

So, I have a profile on TechCoFounder (which I highly recommend), where I'm open to talking with other entrepreneurs on the business side with ideas to pitch.  My hope was to snag an experienced MBA type to handle all of the handshaking and fundraising while I get to build cool products that change the world.

Last week, I got an email from a potential founder in Orlando:

"I have a ground breaking idea I’ve been working on and I’m starting to interview people to create my first tech team. Lets talk"

I have a policy of always responding to new opportunities, so I send back a note asking him to tell me a little more and maybe we'd set up a chat.

After he reviewed my credentials, he replied with an excited invite to lunch in Orlando, but when I declined and insisted on just an initial chat to make sure there was some potential, he agreed, but only if I would sign his NDA (non-disclosure agreement).

I decided not to sign the NDA.  Here's what I wrote:

"I took a look at your NDA and I'm not able to sign it right now. I hear a lot of ideas and I wouldn't want to put myself or any other entrepreneur I work with at risk.


However, I can tell you from my experience that if your idea leverages your deep domain knowledge, and comes with your industry and/or financing connections then you shouldn't worry so much about the privacy because you will bring much to the table. Most successful ideas from the business side have these qualities.


In any case, let's just start with a light 10,000 foot overview that doesn't contain any proprietary information... Sound good?"


In about 15 minutes, I got this:

"I'm sorry but I can not."

I sent him back a nice note wishing him luck on his venture.

OK...  so did I miss out on the opportunity of a lifetime?  Maybe.  But probably not.  It's more likely he missed out on an experienced tech partner.  Why?

There were a few tells that this guy was not an experienced entrepreneur (in actuality he was a lawyer... big surprise).

1. All of the experienced people I've spoken to don't mind at least giving you the 1 min pitch about the opportunity.
2. Experienced entrepreneurs make you aware of their credentials.  I didn't know anything about this guy and he didn't tell me anything to help me.  If he was Steve Job's cousin I certainly would have considered the NDA.
3. His focus was on secrecy, not vision.  Entrepreneurs have vision, and they use it as a their main mode of communication... especially with new contacts.

Personally, I don't keep any ideas secret any more.  I used to, but I stopped.  Here's why:

• If someone can listen to my idea for 10 minutes, steal it, and make millions with it... they probably deserve it more than I do.  Ideas are easy.  Businesses are hard.
• If my idea doesn't relate deeply to my knowledge and experience in a way that makes me the most qualified person to execute it, I probably shouldn't be working on it anyway.
• If the idea is good but doesn't have any "secret sauce" that I can hold back from an initial pitch, it probably isn't good enough.

And the final reason... There's way more value in feedback than secrecy.  That guy missed out on opinions, technical resources and advice that probably would have saved him lots of time and money.

Oh well.

Welcome To TwoDayStartup

Over the last week, I've just had so much "startup" in my head that I feel like I should be writing it all down to benefit other startup entrepreneurs...

The truth is, even though most of my new Tampa followers know me only from my work in leading a StartupWeekend Tampa team to victory, I've done two-day starts on web ideas dozens, if not over a hundred times in the last 15 years.

Some of those starts have led to great success (and even a successful book), like my 2,500,000 member sweepstakes game, Windough.
Some have led to great satisfaction and impact, like my crowd-funding peer charity, WishingFund.
But most have led to nothing but a wild 2 day ride, a little disappointment, and lessons learned.

In fact, here's a short list of some of my failed and abandoned ideas that started with a two-day start (and this is only since '08, since my GoDaddy receipts only go back that far):

• PDFtoPostal - A print driver that prints right to a postal mail service.
• Win4Good - A sweepstakes site that shares winnings with charity.
• StarScratch - A scratch-off sweepstakes site.
• FreeU.edu - A free online university.
• ForeverTales - Online recordable children's books
• VoiceCastLIVE - Easy, affordable group voicemail broadcasts.
• MagicSalesBox - An all-in-one automated marketing system.
• TypeTunes - An easy piano teaching system based on the QUERTY keyboard.
• JoeHero - A website about people coming together to do good things.
• RibbonBook - A facebook integrated automated greeting card service.
• Percentric - Find out why people leave your website
• TheUserSpeaks - A remote usability research website

I had always been somewhat ashamed of my failure list, until recently when I began to reconnect with others in the Tampa and the national startup community.  As I've spoken with more and more hopeful startup entrepreneurs while looking for potential partners, I found myself often in the position of dispensing advice... almost effortlessly, about markets, revenues, technology, testing...

To my surprise, I actually could help these people... gauging by the flow of thank you emails and friend requests.  So, I started thinking of myself not as an entrepreneur with a few good hits and 10,000 hours of failure... but as a 10,000 hour expert on developing a web startup idea to an initial market test.

And, as StartupWeekend Tampa proved, it isn't glitz, glamour or hype that wins an investor's attention... it's substance and experience.  And that I have to share.