Stealing Facebook: Why Your App Idea Is Worthless
As the CEO of a startup development and consulting company, I hear the same question over and over:
“How do I keep people from stealing my idea?”
While your idea for the next world-changing application might be precious to you, it likely doesn’t have much value to others. Ideas, by themselves, are worthless. A well-executed implementation of your idea is where the value lies, and is also surprisingly difficult to steal.
Apps aren’t inventions
An invention is defined as a “unique or novel device, method, composition or process.” Things like a light bulb or a Polaroid camera are inventions and the ideas behind them are easy and profitable to copy. It’s well worth protecting those ideas.
Applications are different because the value isn’t in the idea, or even really in the code; it’s in the application’s user base. It’s very hard to copy a large user base, even if you steal the idea.
You can get a patent on an invention, but it’s now very hard to get a patent on software because even the courts understand the money isn’t in the code.
Could you steal Facebook?
Take Facebook. How would you steal it? Even if you did manage to steal their source code, you still wouldn’t have their 1.2 billion active monthly users. In fact, a very similar copy of code is already out there. You could quickly and easily put up a “Facesbook” clone. Lots of other folks have. None of them are getting rich from it though because they don’t have the users.
Successful startups talk to lots of people
To get your idea off the ground, you’ll need to talk to people. Lots of people. You’ll need to talk to programmers to help build it, people that might use it for feedback, people with money to fund it, and lots more people to get them to try it. You’ll need to prototype it and give it to people to see if they like it. You’ll need throw it away, start over, and try again… and again… and again.
Startups are hard
The process of creating a successful application with a user base is VERY HARD, even with great ideas. That’s why companies like Google help with things like Startup Weekends. They don’t want your idea; they want you to take your idea and run with it. They’re happy to support you and watch you to see if you take the idea anywhere. If you do end up building something that has real value — an app with a large and growing user base — then they’ll pay you millions or billions to buy it from you.
Here’s the bottom line
Go out and talk to lots of people about your idea. If the paranoid part of you exerts too much pressure, feel free to protect the idea with an NDA. You’ll be surprised, however, at how much harder it is to get picked up on anyone’s radar, as opposed to trying to fly below it.
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