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Are you thinking of starting up a
business? Need help with a business plan,
financing, technology, creating financial projections, or
just need
someone to review your business idea for
feasibility? We can help.
We provide these services to entrepreneurs on a pro
bono or free basis.
We review many business plans and ideas. A
common problem with many new entrepreneurs is they won't
discuss their idea with us or investors as they are too
afraid of it being stolen or want everyone to sign an
NDA just to talk about it.
We will not sign one to simply
do you the favor of reviewing your plan and few
investors will sign one. Very few business ideas
are ever "stolen" and even if it was, simply hearing
your idea better not make it repeatable. Personally,
I've never seen a case where an entrepreneur told an
investor about an idea, and the investor ripped it off.
Investors are professionals (for the most part) and they
invest money, not build and start up companies.
Angels and Venture Capitalists
are looking for people who can implement ideas, not
simply come up with them. Ideas are a dime a dozen and
the odds they thought of something so revolutionary it
will change the world and no else has ever thought of it
are pretty low. Implementation of the idea and building
a great company is the hard part ,and where the money
is.
Here is a list of when and when
not to use an NDA:
- Never ask an investor to sign one to have a
first meeting or in the first meeting. If you're
asking for an NDA to merely discuss your idea, keep
your day job because you're clueless.
- You should be pretty open to sending out your
executive summary and PowerPoint presentation to
investors. The main purpose should be to entice
investors to go to the next step. They should not
reveal the inner workings or how you plan to create
value with your business.
- You can and should ask for an NDA if an investor
is interested in your deal and wants to learn more
at a much more detailed level. Obviously, this
becomes more important when discussing life sciences
and material sciences companies.
- You should feel pretty safe once patents are
filed to discuss your magic sauce under an NDA--not
that you'll have the time or resources to sue for
patent infringement. We will also add, for many
other businesses outside of science and technology
fields it is our opinion patents are a waste of time
and money.
- The bottom line is
still that the best protection of an idea is great
implementation of the idea.
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