We hate NDAs!
Does this sound familiar: the prospective client sends an email asking you to give him a quote on how much building his web application or mobile app will cost. You tell him: “Well, before we can do that we need some more detail about what you want the software to do. Maybe we can flesh out some user stories?” — To which the prospective client replies: “Sure, but first please sign the attached Non Disclosure Agreement, so I can be sure you won’t run away with my fantastic, history altering product idea.” Facepalm!
So you go ahead and print this document, sign it and scan it again to send it back to the prospective client, who again will print the document, sign it and scan it to send it back to you. “Please, save the trees “, I hear you crying! “And don’t waste my valuable time!”.
At our company Dreimannzelt, we experienced client requests like this rather frequently. And we hated it!
Because…
We hate NDAs! They’re a pain in our agile asses! We witnessed far too many clients who refused to tell us anything substantial about their project on the first meeting, because they would wait for us to sign the NDA they’d send us tomorrow. Don’t waste our time!
We hate NDAs, because you, dear client, try to protect your idea — and ideas are worth shit! An idea is nothing, execution is everything. We feel sad for client who really seem to believe their ideas would be worth millions.
We hate NDAs, because they clutter up our dropbox folders! I don’t even want to imagine the mountains of paper those clients have to file away and recover when needed…
We hate NDAs, because their legal value is very … well debatable. When push comes to shove, they’re mostly useless. But they seem to be a sacred tradition from ancient business times. The only half valid reason for an NDA is to be an anchor to briefly talk about the topic and say: “Please don’t tell others about my idea” — a post-it note or a reminder on your phone would have worked as an equally good anchor!
But…
Although most of our clients nowadays don’t use NDAs anymore — and those are usually the successful clients — we still take on clients who can’t live without an NDA. To save our clients and us from the hassle of printing, signing and scanning documents before sending them around the globe as bulky email attachments, and to save our precious trees who’d have to die for all the paper, we hacked together a cleaner solution: nda.io. Developing it took us less time than we waste on beating around the bush talks with prospective clients in a single month!
We developed nda.io into a product to be used for free by other people — to spare you from the horrible NDA dance, too. So next time a prospective client asks you to sign an NDA, consider pointing them to nda.io. It doesn’t cost you anything, but it will save you time and nerves! …and it’ll save some of those precious trees we need for more important things than NDAs…
