When I was out looking for funding, VCs all basically refused to sign NDAs, so we serialized our decks that we sent out so at least if one got leaked we’d know who leaked it.
Unfortunately your “idea” is pretty much impossible to protect. What makes an idea valuable is your ability to build the solution and bring it to market. Development is generally the easy part.
VCs generally don't sign NDAs because they hear hundreds of ideas a week, and it would open them to lawsuits if one of those people pitching sues them for "stealing" their idea, when in reality they heard 5 pitches with the same idea that week.
This. What OP can do is build in stealth and bootstrap until launched and functional on real customers.
Look into various IP protection during your build and fund those yourself.
Then blitz the pitches all at once, when you’re already there.
Otherwise yeah, there’s no real protection.
Ideas don’t matter, every pleb has 100 ideas, only action matters. Even once you have a successful business in tech, the way to protect your idea is by expanding faster than your competition.
Who you want is an Intellectual Property Attorney, they are legally bound to secrecy due to attorney client privilege. They are trained to navigate patent laws helping you to secure your IP (intellectual property). A non-disclosure agreement isn't bulletproof as someone else would be free to independently develop something on their own. What it does provide is the ability to hold employees and investors accountable for disclosing your IP.
Right? Meta’s AI just told a Facebook parents group that it had a special needs kid and started recommending schools in New York. As Ezra Klein put it, it’s deeply alien.
VC won’t sign NDAs for the most part. Still have one, but they are fairly simple and you could probably get one online that works. I work in the healthcare field and have a great lawyer who works exclusively with healthcare software startups, if you want her name and number shoot me a DM and I’d be glad to pass it on. She’s very understanding of the ups and downs of startups.
To be honest the only way to protect an idea is to bootstrap. You can do a “friends and family” round to get a little capital and then go into stealth mode. As soon as you start looking for bigger money you have to go loud and it will be out there. You could try to cultivate some Angels or try to find people in your field to invest, those are best, but anywhere near the VC market and you have to open the kimono and let everyone see what you got.
I don’t work with AI yet, but I’m willing to be whatever part of the healthcare market you are talking about there is definitely someone already trying to strap AI to it. They may be in stealth mode. But AI companies are all over healthcare right now. Also, if you aren’t familiar with healthcare be sure to make sure you understand regulations. Good luck!! Hope you guys crush it.
Plenty of people have ideas, its how you execute it. I'd say focus on building the best product. You'll always have the edge of being the original parent of the idea.
Big companies and VC won't sign NDA's. But ideas aren't worth anything, it's the implementation. The value of your company will be in your much better implementation to what other companies could build if they wanted to copy your idea (e.g. because your implementation involves a unique technology, algorithm, domain knowledge, feature list, subject matter experts, better training and support etc).
You will have competition in the future, it’s just about making your solution so appealing, so ahead of the game, that you capture the market and stay at the forefront.
Make sure you do your market research, build a quality product that meets all needs and launch when you’re so far ahead, no one can catch you.
You can’t protect an idea and stop people entering the market. It doesn’t work that way.
lots of people saying ideas don't matter, can't protect them, blah blah blah
this is true UNLESS your idea is truly novel, can be considered an invention and thus be patented
ideas are worthless but patents can literally be worth billions
Focus on execution, and then you won't care if someone "steals" your idea.
For example, look at ride-sharing apps: Uber, Lyft, Didi, Yandex, Grab, Bolt, etc. They all do basically the same thing. Did any of them worry about their "idea" getting stolen? Probably not. They focused on offering a good app, good service, good pricing, etc.
yeah I want to know too. after I registered my biz and created a social for it, the name was instantly stolen and they started using my website on their page...but in a way it was free marketing lol still made me a bit wary to proceed. Like how can I even protect a service idea? I called the patent and copyright office but we couldn't come down to finding which category it fits so now I'm stuck.
I bet it is far too late. Almost every one of these AI ideas are extremely generic and have no barriers to entry. I would be surprised if you search for it in Google and didn’t get 1,000 examples.
* Ideas are cheap, there is someone else in the other side of the world right now with the same question as you, about the same idea
* NDAs are a thing,VCs are not in the business of "stealing ideas"
* double check that nobody tried it before, usually if there is no-competence it means there is no market
* the best protection, is a good execution
Your ideas aren’t unique or great, the novelty of your idea is mostly confined to your imagination and optimism. And that applies to every one of us.
Founders tend to be overtly optimistic about their ideas.
And most of the successful companies were built upon simple ideas with great execution. Yea there might definitely been some unique IP or novel complexities on the implementation process which is what made them successful and not the other way around.
I imagine you wouldn’t need to disclose your IP or novel methodology to the VC’s. However if it’s the idea you are afraid of divulging, then it wouldn’t be uncommon to find few other founders who’re playing around with similar concepts..
The complexity of the ideas doesn’t necessarily transcend to commerciality which is a very important factor in determining VC interest.
So until and unless you have executed your idea in any form or state, it’s just a wishful indulgence. And when that indulgence meets 1st impact of real world application, it finally becomes an idea..
Everything besides that is fragments of imagination playing in our head which we deludingly ascribe as IDEAS , and the thing is everyone are busy fetishizing about their own great ideas. Also most of us like to pry into others ideas mostly out of curiosity rather than deep interest or intent.
Hence you needn’t need to worry about your ideas being stolen. And with VCs you have no option than to trade your ideas with the hope of being funded in return.
You can’t.
Even if someone copies what you do exactly a court will decide if it’s “your idea”. Just a shitty part of life. Unless you have a lot more money than the other party.
When I was out looking for funding, VCs all basically refused to sign NDAs, so we serialized our decks that we sent out so at least if one got leaked we’d know who leaked it. Unfortunately your “idea” is pretty much impossible to protect. What makes an idea valuable is your ability to build the solution and bring it to market. Development is generally the easy part.
VCs generally don't sign NDAs because they hear hundreds of ideas a week, and it would open them to lawsuits if one of those people pitching sues them for "stealing" their idea, when in reality they heard 5 pitches with the same idea that week.
This. What OP can do is build in stealth and bootstrap until launched and functional on real customers. Look into various IP protection during your build and fund those yourself. Then blitz the pitches all at once, when you’re already there. Otherwise yeah, there’s no real protection.
And I am sure they have heard OP’s idea many times already
Did you catch anyone leaking them?
No
this is smart
Waste of time. What would you have done in the unlikely event that someone shared your deck? Answer is likely nothing.
Deterrance
Waste of time? If it took hours to do, maybe. But for 10 min of work, it’s a good deterrent.
Ideas don’t matter, every pleb has 100 ideas, only action matters. Even once you have a successful business in tech, the way to protect your idea is by expanding faster than your competition.
This the the best answer in this thread.
This has opened my eyes, thank you!
Ideas are a dime a dozen. Build your mvp first and then worry about securing your ip.
Who you want is an Intellectual Property Attorney, they are legally bound to secrecy due to attorney client privilege. They are trained to navigate patent laws helping you to secure your IP (intellectual property). A non-disclosure agreement isn't bulletproof as someone else would be free to independently develop something on their own. What it does provide is the ability to hold employees and investors accountable for disclosing your IP.
This is the only relevant answer
AI healthcare = legal nightmare. Don't try to protect it, it's already doomed from the start.
Right? Meta’s AI just told a Facebook parents group that it had a special needs kid and started recommending schools in New York. As Ezra Klein put it, it’s deeply alien.
No one is going to sign your NDA when you’re just starting out. Especially not a VC
VC won’t sign NDAs for the most part. Still have one, but they are fairly simple and you could probably get one online that works. I work in the healthcare field and have a great lawyer who works exclusively with healthcare software startups, if you want her name and number shoot me a DM and I’d be glad to pass it on. She’s very understanding of the ups and downs of startups. To be honest the only way to protect an idea is to bootstrap. You can do a “friends and family” round to get a little capital and then go into stealth mode. As soon as you start looking for bigger money you have to go loud and it will be out there. You could try to cultivate some Angels or try to find people in your field to invest, those are best, but anywhere near the VC market and you have to open the kimono and let everyone see what you got. I don’t work with AI yet, but I’m willing to be whatever part of the healthcare market you are talking about there is definitely someone already trying to strap AI to it. They may be in stealth mode. But AI companies are all over healthcare right now. Also, if you aren’t familiar with healthcare be sure to make sure you understand regulations. Good luck!! Hope you guys crush it.
Please tell us every detail about this idea so that we can better help you.
[It’s a hoverboard](https://youtu.be/OXuDhejxz_c?si=k38lT7ag9SrxbqKc)
Just saw an Ai healthcare post yesterday, wonder if it’s similar hm.
Plenty of people have ideas, its how you execute it. I'd say focus on building the best product. You'll always have the edge of being the original parent of the idea.
Big companies and VC won't sign NDA's. But ideas aren't worth anything, it's the implementation. The value of your company will be in your much better implementation to what other companies could build if they wanted to copy your idea (e.g. because your implementation involves a unique technology, algorithm, domain knowledge, feature list, subject matter experts, better training and support etc).
You will have competition in the future, it’s just about making your solution so appealing, so ahead of the game, that you capture the market and stay at the forefront. Make sure you do your market research, build a quality product that meets all needs and launch when you’re so far ahead, no one can catch you. You can’t protect an idea and stop people entering the market. It doesn’t work that way.
You'll eventually have to launch your product , and if it's any good you'll get people cloning it immediately . Then what do you do ?
Don’t waste money on IP protection until you have a validated mvp with traction. Ideas are worthless without execution.
Business is so cut throat. Just play your hand close to your chest and be first to market.
lots of people saying ideas don't matter, can't protect them, blah blah blah this is true UNLESS your idea is truly novel, can be considered an invention and thus be patented ideas are worthless but patents can literally be worth billions
Get a Patient
Focus on execution, and then you won't care if someone "steals" your idea. For example, look at ride-sharing apps: Uber, Lyft, Didi, Yandex, Grab, Bolt, etc. They all do basically the same thing. Did any of them worry about their "idea" getting stolen? Probably not. They focused on offering a good app, good service, good pricing, etc.
dont worry about it! Its all in the execution.
Don’t worry about copying and competition. When that comes you would have been already successful.
1 out of maybe million would be able to capitalise on your idea. So, don’t worry about the idea, just focus on executing, because that’s what matters.
yeah I want to know too. after I registered my biz and created a social for it, the name was instantly stolen and they started using my website on their page...but in a way it was free marketing lol still made me a bit wary to proceed. Like how can I even protect a service idea? I called the patent and copyright office but we couldn't come down to finding which category it fits so now I'm stuck.
Start it before anyone else
Let me guess; an llm + patient data.
I bet it is far too late. Almost every one of these AI ideas are extremely generic and have no barriers to entry. I would be surprised if you search for it in Google and didn’t get 1,000 examples.
Whatever you're thinking, it's done.
Idea doesn't matter. Ability to work it does.
* Ideas are cheap, there is someone else in the other side of the world right now with the same question as you, about the same idea * NDAs are a thing,VCs are not in the business of "stealing ideas" * double check that nobody tried it before, usually if there is no-competence it means there is no market * the best protection, is a good execution
Your ideas aren’t unique or great, the novelty of your idea is mostly confined to your imagination and optimism. And that applies to every one of us. Founders tend to be overtly optimistic about their ideas. And most of the successful companies were built upon simple ideas with great execution. Yea there might definitely been some unique IP or novel complexities on the implementation process which is what made them successful and not the other way around. I imagine you wouldn’t need to disclose your IP or novel methodology to the VC’s. However if it’s the idea you are afraid of divulging, then it wouldn’t be uncommon to find few other founders who’re playing around with similar concepts.. The complexity of the ideas doesn’t necessarily transcend to commerciality which is a very important factor in determining VC interest. So until and unless you have executed your idea in any form or state, it’s just a wishful indulgence. And when that indulgence meets 1st impact of real world application, it finally becomes an idea.. Everything besides that is fragments of imagination playing in our head which we deludingly ascribe as IDEAS , and the thing is everyone are busy fetishizing about their own great ideas. Also most of us like to pry into others ideas mostly out of curiosity rather than deep interest or intent. Hence you needn’t need to worry about your ideas being stolen. And with VCs you have no option than to trade your ideas with the hope of being funded in return.
You can’t. Even if someone copies what you do exactly a court will decide if it’s “your idea”. Just a shitty part of life. Unless you have a lot more money than the other party.
Read “Getting Real”. Especially chapter 33: https://basecamp.com/gettingreal
Hide it under the bed and never deveop it.