Why you shouldn’t keep your startup idea secret | Hacker News Reader

Why you shouldn’t keep your startup idea secret

cdixon.org

33 pointsprakash24 comments

"In terms of the risk of someone stealing your idea, there are at best a handful of people in the world who might actually drop everything and copy your idea."

Sure. But what if there are others who are already working on something similar and, on hearing about your idea, glom some interesting features, or get motivated to push something out before you do.

I guess I'm skeptical that that there is zero downside to having your competitors know what you are doing.

If you already have "competitors" (that is, if they see you as their competition), you're past the idea stage. If you don't, then they're as likely to listen to you as to an anonymous email telling them to do features X, Y, and Z.

I would agree that its important to get feedback from everyone around you. But, there's something scary about throwing out an idea on Hacker News. The author mentions that only a handful of people will drop what they're doing and copy your idea. I would imagine that your odds are a LOT greater around here! :)

Of course, I'm half kidding here... but I cant be the only one who ever worried about this.

There is a huge gulf between "can copy" and "will copy". Execution wins every time.

There has to be a difference between "talking to everyone who will listen" and "broadcasting your idea to the world". You might want to talk about your idea to 99% of the people you meet, but specifically avoid 1% for one reason or another - putting it in front of an anonymous audience makes that control impossible.

I've yet to see that come true, ever. I've seen lots of people try to do that, but invariably types like that will go for the low hanging fruit. Their heart won't be in it and as soon as the next thing comes by that looks like less work they'll start chasing that.

Building a business takes dedication and tons of effort, the idea is a minor part of it all. Sure, you need an idea to get started but if your execution is excellent it will take a very determined party to try to compete with you.

"Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats."

that's Howard Aiken, for the record.

I strongly agree with this post. Summary: you have more to gain in idea refinements and reality checks than you have to "loose" from competition. Also NDAs are almost worthless.

> Also NDAs are almost worthless.

That's so true. It's gotten to be such a formality now that plenty of parties don't even bother with them any more. In the US maybe less so that in Europe, but the last NDA I signed is already 2 years ago and it's not like I haven't done anything in that period.

By the time you need that NDA you probably have other problems to attend to.

I personally sit on the fence here.

It's funny because just a few weeks ago, this article was on HN. Don't these 2 arguments contradict each other?

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=660720

Don't these 2 arguments contradict each other?

Let's get to the real issue here: you seem to be under the impression that airing a variety of viewpoints is somehow problematic.

That's not what I meant. I meant, I am on the fence... here is an article (and comments) with the opposite viewpoint.

I don't necessarily think these two contradict each other--they're really about different things. Sivers' article is concerned with the psychology behind motivation while this article and discussion is about the fear of idea stealing.

I'm firmly in the camp of sharing ideas with anyone who will listen. And, ideally, with different types of people. If I can concisely explain my idea with someone who doesn't know a browser from a modem, then that's when I know I've really thought through my idea.

That would be impossible if you're walking around with entrepreneur paranoia.

I mostly agree. There are a few corner cases where this does not apply. I'm working on a new app right now which I feel there is no value in openly exposing it prior to launch. Even after launch, I'm only going to market directly to my end user and not seek wide-scale exposure. I have discussed the niche I'm going after with a few trusted advisors and that is all I need to verify I'm thinking straight. Exposing it early may not introduce a copy cat, but in my case may cause other problems. I know, I'm being a bit mysterious, but there it is ;).

I personally think you should share ideas with people if you respect their ethics and skills.

If your idea is so easy to steal, copy, reproduce that there mere act of telling someone about it is a threat, then

    1) Your idea (like all ideas) has minimal value.
    2) Someone else probably has/is/will come up with it independently.  
    3) When you do reveal/launch it and it's worth anything someone with more money/laywers/customers/clout/power/marketing than you will take it anyway.

Ideas are nothing. Implementations of ideas maybe something. Good/successful implementations are hard to reproduce/steal. The article points are about helping you achieve that good implementation. Something which secrecy hinders.

Also note, that currently for most the world, people with money/power can generally make ideas not worth stealing via various patent/copyright laws and the general high cost of litigation.

I kept my idea secret for years because I thought that as soon as someone else knew it, they would steal it, execute it, and become a billionaire while I'd be stuck in a cubicle forever.

I thought I was so smart, but looking back, I can't believe I was so stupid.

Once I started sharing my idea (only parts of it at first), I got instant feedback, what was good, what was stupid, how to improve it, who else to talk to, etc. You get the idea.

My dream took wings and became my project only after I shared it with others.

The funny thing is that would-be novelists have same illusion and face the same failure - except the ideas of writers don't have to be as original...

I am starting a new project and have decided to keep quiet about it until I am a little closer to release. This has challenged my idea of confidentiality a bit, and I will start revealing more information a bit earlier.

As a side not. I Created a quick sign up page at: http://141312.com/launcher. I find it interesting that most people who have signed up have marked that they would be willing to sign an NDA for an earlier beta.

I'm not sure if I will require an NDA, but I plan on using people's willingness to sign one as an input for that decision.

This article has challenged your idea of confidentiality? Is there anything in the article you had not thought of already? To me it seems one of those opinion pieces of common sense stuff and it always puzzles me as to how they manage to get so many votes, although I suppose it probably is because they are good marketers.

I liked the discussion here tho, as always.

You might consider using a http://friendda.org/ instead. It's not likely you'd actually try to sue one of your beta testers anyway; it's more of a social gesture than anything, a friendly request to your community asking that they not talk too much about Fight Club.

I'd love to see pg's input on this

I'd love to know your input on this more. This whole comments thing isn't just to kill time before pg decides to pipe up.

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