Is Your Startup Fighting the Wrong Competitors?
What if the companies you think are your enemies are actually more like your frenemies?
Most entrepreneurs I meet are surprisingly obsessed with their competitors and the potential of other people to steal their ideas. I get asked to sign NDAs at least once per week (which, of course, I never do because NDAs are ridiculous). I constantly get questions about filing for IP. And nearly every pitch I see includes a slide about competition. In fact, an article I wrote years ago about how all entrepreneurs screw up their competition slide is still one of my most popular articles, and I often see it cited around the Internet.
Should entrepreneurs be so suspicious? Do they genuinely need to worry about other people stealing their ideas?
Honestly, I don’t know.
I suppose it partially depends on what’s being built. I find myself thinking someone developing a new iPhone game should be less worried than a researcher developing a molecule that shrinks cancer cells. The cancer-shrinking molecule seems like it’d be more valuable and easier to steal/replicate once a competitor understood it. But maybe I’m not being fair to game developers.
Regardless, one thing I do know is that, when entrepreneurs get overly suspicious…
