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October 02, 2003
The Cult of the NDA
There's an interesting post on Dispatches from the Frozen North entitled "The Cult of the NDA" which starts out like this:
"To all those entrepreneurs with innovative, unique business ideas who want to capitalize on them before someone else does, I have one piece of advice: Get over it."
I found this post to be particularly entertaining because the number of NDAs I used to have to sign at my old job. I guess I still sign my fair share, but nowhere near what it was like in the late 90s. The best part of the article deals with NDA misconceptions. In particular:
Misconception: If others find out about my unique idea, they could bring it to market first, and steal the advantage from me.
Reality: Surprise, surprise, but the rest of the world is not watching your every move waiting to pounce on anything you do. In fact, large incumbents generally don't take much notice of the startups until after a startup begins to have some success in the marketplace.
The article talks about how amazingly difficult (if not impossible) it is to actually come up with a new idea. I guess I shouldn't say it's impossible since occasionally new technology becomes available that enables new processes and ideas, but I think by now, pretty much all ideas are basically a variation on an idea many others have already had.
The article also suggests doing the exact opposite of asking everyone you meet to sign an NDA. Why not publicize your idea? Get some feedback? Try to learn something about what your building from others before you actually start building it? Do you think if Dean Kamen had done this a few years ago, the Segway would have ever been brought to market?
So here's an interesting (but not unique) idea. The next time you want to start something new -- whether it's a project or a company -- rather than trying to come up with a new and unique idea, why not just improve upon an existing product or business model? That way, you can learn from other's mistakes, and be sure you are entering a proven market. I imagine it's easier to gain market share than it is to actually build it where it never existed.
Posted by cantrell at October 2, 2003 01:16 PM | References
Comments
There was a neat interview with Andrew Hargadon on a related topic.
http://www.acm.org/ubiquity/interviews/v4i30_hargadon.html
Posted by: Viswanath Gondi at October 2, 2003 08:44 PM
Well I think NDA's are a fact of life and have been around before MM merged with Allaire. The general idea of an NDA is sound, at least in MM's case with say - RedSky - which is a product noone else could have imagined. The final product -thanks to all of us NDA signing beta testers - was better than even we expected.
If an NDA gives company some portion of legal weight should you not toe the line (after essentially signing a legal contract to NOT disclose information regarding a certain project) than so be it.
Of course as it turned out to be with CFMX 6.1 (RedSky) the product was hard not get excited about. NDA. Non Disclosure Agreement. A missive for Macromedia as nothing quite like RedSky exists apart from 6.1 itself. A valid argument for NDA? In this case I think so.
Posted by: Peter Tilbrook at October 3, 2003 01:48 AM
For obvious reasons, I feel I should stay away from specific Macromedia examples, so I'll just make some general comments. I think a lot of businesses believe their primary assets are their ideas, and so they protect them with things like patents and NDAs. Recently I have been wondering if perhaps ideas are not really assets, but rather the desire, resources and ability to execute on them are what makes businesses successful. The author uses Microsoft as an example. Although I believe Microsoft is developing some truly innovative technology now, they didn't used to. Instead of original ideas, Microsoft became successful because of the way they executed on other people's ideas and technology. Although their execution certainly required creativity and ingenuity on their part, their actual products required far less.
Posted by: Christian Cantrell at October 3, 2003 11:01 AM
That makes a lot of sense. ColdFusion 6.1 is the great product it is not because of the efforts of MANY people over many years.
Yes it is nice to have an idea to make ColdFusion better. But when MM drove down the J2EE path with the product - well - look what we have now?
Nine years ago would I have considered ColdFusion to be as fast and powerful as it is today? No. Five years ago? Possibly. CFMX 6.0 on the right track. 6.1 - strewth! How BAD is 7.0 going to be?
MM should take heart in the positive reviews CFMX - particularly RedSky - has received. Covet your developers as they are obviously very good at what they do!
And they know how to keep a good secret, NDA or not :)
Posted by: Peter Tilbrook at October 4, 2003 09:00 AM
If an NDA gives company some portion of legal weight should you not toe the line (after essentially signing a legal contract to NOT disclose information regarding a certain project) than so be it.
Posted by: Buy.com at December 10, 2003 06:57 PM