HOW TO PROTECT YOUR IDEA BEFORE AND AFTER LAUNCH

I was pitching to an investor early this week, i had every document ready and even made a nice looking slide deck to show him. After keenly observing my business model canvas, he suddenly said. "How do you protect yourself"? At first i didn't understand because i thought since I'm the owner of the idea, no one could really steal what's up there in my brain. But then when i tried to reply i couldn't find a reasonable answer."I've never thought about it" was all i could say.

This prompted me  to look deeper and i was able to find answers. The truth is that ideas are cheap and implementation is hard, it is worth infinitely more than just the idea. Its as simple as that. There are probably over a million people with your idea. The difference between you and them is your unfair advantage, what separates you from them is your uniqueness and how you perfectly turn your idea into a real product. However, there are some rules you must observe if you want to give your idea a military grade protection.

First, identify if your idea have a low or high barrier entry. Maybe your idea has a low barrier to entry. If so, the advantage of secrecy lasts only until you launch at which time any potential competitor can only launch by copying your efforts. On the other hand, if there is a high barrier to entry, you'll need to raise funds, which requires you to discuss your idea. Considering that investors do not sign Non Disclosure Agreements. It will be good to have an elevator pitch. Secondly, develop an elevator pitch. You know your idea better than anyone else. Chances are that anyone who tries to steal your idea after hearing your elevator pitch won't know all the details of how you want to implement it. So if you have a high entry level idea this should be the first step to take.

The truth is, building a business is really, really hard. Success is really, really elusive. It's the rare startup that fails because of a stolen idea; startups fail because they cannot execute (for any of lots of reasons). Instead of secrecy, focus on how you will execute your idea better than any potential competitor, whether equally or better funded than you. That's your edge. It's also how you'll convince a team and, if you need to, investors.

You can also read HOW TO FIND THE PERFECT CO-FOUNDER FOR YOUR START UP