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The Cult of the NDA
Anonymous Coward writes "After looking at hundreds of business plans during the tech boom of the late 1990's, and starting my own company two years ago, I've long been bothered by the near obsession with secrecy shown by many tech startups. This is especially striking considering how few startups are actually pursuing unique ideas. I finally wrote an article about this, The Cult of the NDA, where I argue that too much secrecy can actually hurt a company's chances. Open-source startups, anyone?"
But I signed an NDA saying I wouldn't. Sorry.
First of all, even if you don't believe that a given company's ideas are "unique", chances are far better than not that they DO. Amazon.com probably honestly believes that "one-click shopping" is a unique idea, and that they deserved their patent on it. And you can bet your buttons that every programmer, managers and janitor who worked on that project signed NDAs out the wazoo.
As the SCO debacle should amply demonstrate, today's corporate culture is not about who's doing what uniquely, or even who "owns" what, but who can best convince/bribe a judge and/or jury. The business plans for many corps seem to be "Try to make money the old-fashioned way (i.e. selling useful products and/or services), and if that fails, sue somebody." To do that, you need reams and reams of paperwork, both to demonstrate that you were "duly diligent" in covering your butt (this is where the NDAs come in) and to document every little thing you've done. (Hence taking minutes of meetings, keeping archives of email, and other time-consuming corporate activities).
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
NDA's are a very different animal in a large, established company. They don't just cover new technology, but product plans, personnel changes, financial information, employees' personal information, vendor's and customers' proprietary information, and all manner of things that a company has a duty to keep confidential.
Whenever I've shopped an idea around for funding, I haven't been to tight-lipped about what the idea was, because I've found that for the most part, people like their own ideas, and just aren't much inclined to steal mine. Getting them to back my idea is a lot of hard work. The real task in getting an idea to market is to convince the backers and the other participants in the venture that you have the right team to develop and deliver the idea.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Secrecy under the right circumstances, and with just a tiny little tease of information, can turn into a whole pile of hype.
>I've found that for the most part, people like their own ideas, and just aren't much inclined to steal mine
I can't remember who said this:
"Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are actually good and helpful, you'll have to cram them down people's throats at gunpoint."
Don Lancaster has made the same point about secrecy as the article did. There's only one smartest person in the world, the odds are overwhelming that it's not you, your idea will have occurred to someone else, and the way to make money is to kill bad ideas quickly.
The first rule of NDA Cult is - you do not talk about NDA Cult.
The second rule of NDA Cult is - you DO NOT talk about NDA Cult.
Third rule of NDA Cult, someone yells "Stop!", gets an attorney, or finds shredded documents then deny all knowledge.
Fourth rule, only two guys to a fight(When beans are spilled).
Fifth rule, as many NDA's at a time, fellas.
Sixth rule, no wires, no cell phones.
Seventh rule, NDAs will go on as long as they have to.
And the eighth and final rule, if this is your first night at NDA Club, you have to shut up about what you see.
Ok, you sound really optimistic about things, don't you?
/.er who has never got involved in building business.
Here's my situation: I just started a software company too, and we are located in Shanghai, China, where everyone is using warez. I believed we have pretty good stuff, and we have not announced it to the whole world just yet.
If you can't finance your grand idea with the money you can raise on your own. . . find a cheaper idea. Start small. Build up. Keep control.
We did. We sold our house, our cars, our nice furnitures, our stocks (at a loss given the current stock market), took out our IRA and 401K, took out our whole life savings, and established our development center in Shanghai so that we don't have to pay $70K+ to hire an engineer in Silicon Valley.
Don't be 0wNxed.
Yeah, that's everyone's dream, isn't it? Otherwise, why bother taking the risk to start your own?
Take out ad. Use bullhorns. Buy billboards.
How? Since you don't want to take VC money, and start small (remember? that's what your proposed!), where do you find money to do all that? Looks like you haven't started your own company, and managed your budget, have you?
I don't have a rich dad who can give a couple of mils to start with. I worked my bud off for years, save money to start my own.
This is my second attempt. The first one was failed, and I lost pretty much everything I had at that time. I don't feel bitter nor do I regret about it. It's my choice, and I made my decision to go into it fully aware that I might lose my shirt. If I could come back in time, I'd do it again. As a matter of fact, I'm starting again.
If nothing else some of those other people who are already ahead of you will just go, "Fuck man," think they're already beat, and go do something else.
If you are not sure about your plan, and are not even confident about, you probably shouldn't start it anyway, unless people give you money to do the thing, money that you said you shouldn't take.
Besides, if you go into business and you don't have perseverance, don't do it. It's not like you have to give up everytime there's a competitor. When competitors show up, it might be a sign that this is good stuff, if you are the glass-half-full kind.
Sell shit. Make money. Be happy.
Again, how? You said earlier that your idea must be good and original and not a me-too, that means that shouldn't be called selling shit, right? You should be confident that it's real good stuff, right? I believe my idea is good stuff, and I show you how confident I am by betting my whole life savings on it, and by working 16 hours/day and seven days per week.
Stop worrying about the other guy and take care of your own damn business. Leave the Spy vs. Spy shit for the real spies. If you're going to "die" if someone finds out what you're up to it's usually a sign that you've picked the wrong damn business to be in.
Yeah, talking like a
Architect. Custom cabinet maker. Custom bicycle frame builder. Custom software coder. Luthier. Interior Decorator. Anyone who fixes anything. Publisher. Musician. Tailor.
These are all people whose primary business is selling things that don't exist yet.
You are thinking in terms of vaporware. I'm thinking in terms of business.
A hotel that doesn't have most of its rooms booked before it opens is a hotel that is most likely to fail.
The fact that they're advertising and taking bookings while the scaffolding is still up doesn't mean they're doing anything slimey.
Entire cities have been sold before they existed.
If this sort of risk bothers you you don't want a business. You want a job.
That's ok. That's what most people really want, no matter what they say.
KFG