Monday, December 11, 2006

Thief Thief - Stole my idea

People who startup companies are cautious. I have seen numerous websites say "We are in stealth mode and we will be up and running in a couple of months" which I interpret as "We are scared to share our idea because we think you will steal it and launch a company before we do". Is it really that easy to steal an idea ?

I don't think so. If an idea were so valuable, wouldn't there be a market for ideas ? If you want to find out how valuable an idea is, try selling one in the market and you will find out the reality. What is really valuable though is an idea that has been implemented in the form of a product, and you can certainly sell that for a couple million dollars.

Another way to think about it is to take an example, say search engines. The idea of search engines is really old, but over the years, many have come and gone. When google launched their search engine, there was nothing unique in the idea, what was unique was their approach to the problem and the implementation. That was what eventually took them to their current multi-billion dollar valuation and the greenbacks in the pockets of Sergey and Larry.

So think twice before you hide an idea - discussing it with someone might give you more value than hiding it inside your head.

6 comments:

Vishal said...

Dude, check out my idea :)

www.womenzweb.com

VV said...

Thats true...
I go with you Pranav.

Anonymous said...

Would you like to reThink on this post ?

Piyush Aggarwal said...

The only thing which can be sold today is an idea and nothing else rest is pure fiction.Watch this movie called V for Vendetta and you would get what i am talking about.

Anonymous said...

err.. so why is that you guys are hiding. Come on I was so curious the other day on what it was :| especially after having built few community based apps..

@piyush - the real challenge is making the "fiction part" a reality. Idea is not really much unless it is something that is going to bring a whole new perspective at doing things - like using electronic documents instead of paper. Its also quite stupid to sign NDAs most of the time. I agree with Pranav, there is nothing like steal an ideal, can you steal the team, the execution..

Coolpranni said...

Well, we are not really hiding, but we would like to get your first hand feedback as an end user, hence the surprise element. Watch out for an invite in a day or so :).