Don’t ask me to sign your NDA

It’s a tired phrase in startup land:

Ideas are worthless.

But your idea isn’t worthless. Not this one.

Really it’s not. Entrepreneurship starts with that first spark. Your idea is the catalyst for all that follows. It’s the question that begs for answers.

Your idea is so important, you think, that it needs safeguarded. How can you be first to market if someone steals it?

Even worse, you can’t build the idea by yourself. You find yourself a great developer who, with your direction, can build a stellar app.

But she’s wicked smart and she might just be too tempted to build it on her own. It’s not that you don’t trust her. Your idea is simply that good.

You draft an NDA. And you ask them to sign it.

I won’t say no.

I’ll sign your NDA. But don’t be surprised if we don’t work together.

My freelancer friends and I joke about NDAs. That developer you want to hire? She’s probably joked about them, too. We think they’re silly, and some of us might even tell it to your face.

But that doesn’t help you much when you just want to protect your idea.

Why do you want an NDA?

To protect my product.

Why does it need protecting?

The idea is amazing.

Why is it amazing?

Because…

If you’re still at the idea stage, you cannot answer this question with any certainty. You’re still looking for the answers to this question.

A startup is an organization formed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model. — Steve Blank

When you ask me to sign your NDA, you’re saying that you don’t know this. You don’t know that your idea needs validation. You don’t know it can change.

People like to work on projects that will succeed. When you ask me to sign your NDA, you’re sending a strong negative signal about your project’s likelihood of success. It says you’re focused on the wrong things.

Maybe you’ve been burned recently. Maybe you just want to be cautious.

But your NDA hurts more than it helps.

Why?

You cut off crucial early feedback. If no one knows about your idea, no one can tell you when and how and why it’s good. Or if it’s not good at all.

Your idea is just the formation of your search party.

It substantially raises your risk. The more time and money you spend not validating, the higher the likelihood you waste both.

Worst of all, I can’t share your awesome idea. I’m lucky to be friends with a great investor. Sometimes I tell him when I meet with companies he should invest in. Sometimes those companies are my clients. If I sign your NDA, he’ll never know about your idea. He’ll never know how much you’ve learned and built. He won’t be able connect the dots.

Would I ever ask you to not tell people about my work?

For your own good, please don’t ask me to sign your NDA.

I’m Josh Smith. I run a software development consultancy called Coderly where I sometimes sign NDAs. You can follow me on Twitter @joshsmith.