How do you keep someone from stealing your idea? This is one of the most frequent questions I get from budding entrepreneurs. Here is my common sense advice that will help you move past being frozen without totally abandoning common sense.
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Dale’s Rule of Thumb: “People who will steal ideas cannot execute them.”]
Corollary: “People who can execute ideas do not need yours.”]
Five Things You Can Do to Protect Your Idea
- Make sure your ideas is really unique. Most people think their idea is new, but often it is not. So before you get too worried about protecting something that someone else owns, search and find if it has already been done. Beware of the red jeep rule. (Do a quick patent search)
- Document your idea. Use photos, notes, emails to trusted people or even to yourself. Common sense stuff. (Engineering Notebooks)
- File a provisional patent. (See provisional patent forms)
- Sign a non-disclosure as you are discussing your idea. (Non-disclosure Form)
- Execute swiftly. The sooner you capture the market the better.
“In entrepreneurship, execution is everything. Ideas are a dime a dozen.”]
What’s the Worst that Can Happen?
Your idea will be stolen. But, you will know you have good ideas and you can now move to idea #2 with lessons learned.
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