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Comment by rsingla | Hacker News Reader

Thanks for the post, it's refreshing to see some brainstorming being put out there! Along the lines of connecting ideas with prospective founders, I'd like your opinion on something.

A common theme I hear when talking to end users or key opinion leaders is that they don't want to divulge their ideas at risk of it being poached. They may be excellent ideas, or forward thinking individuals, but grow concerned about IP/giving away ideas, etc. On the flip side, they often don't have the time or resources to tackle all their ideas (if any) so things don't get done. I speak in particular from a healthcare perspective.

In your mind, how would you convince such users to participate in brainstorming more freely?

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Since I have personally received (unsolicited) confidential pitch decks from several first and second tier VCs who have taken a pitch from Company/Founder A, all the while entirely committed to funding Company/Founder B, ie sending the deck around to their network to gather feedback solely for the benefit of Founder B...I would say the concern is well founded.

That said, I would also say that "ideas" never get funded...only teams/founders get funded. The idea you start with is rarely the idea that makes a business work.

Meanwhile, a good founder/team can take practically any flawed idea ...within reason... and make it work as a business.

For whatever reason, the culture in Silicon Valley has evolved to be relatively open about ideas and business plans. As you've discovered, this is a stark contrast with the norms in lots of other industries/parts of the world.

This culture of course has a powerful pro-economic side effect -- ideas that are shared have a chance to grow, evolve, be challenged and fork, ultimately coming out stronger and better-developed.

To answer your concrete question on how to persuade someone with a different background to open up about their ideas -- maybe share this blog post with them? A little bit of social validation that other successful people are willing to share their ideas can't hurt. :)

> A common theme I hear when talking to end users or key opinion leaders is that they don't want to divulge their ideas at risk of it being poached.

That's definitely not my experience. "End users" and people without extensive startup expertise hold their ideas close, but the genuinely experienced founders and experts I know share freely.

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