Shhhh - Can You Keep a Secret?

Stealing ideas. It is as old as prostitution (or so I would believe). Every day people take credit for the ideas and the work that others do. This is why we have patents and patent lawyers. Most people don't take the time to protect ideas, because often you don't realize just how great your idea is. When I am at a dinner party and people ask me what I do, I don't respond by handing them a non-disclosure contract before we can continue the conversation - but today I started thinking that maybe I DO need to be more discreet in discussing our product ideas and goals.

I attended the LegalTech event in NYC today to finally meet a vendor with whom I had only interacted via email and phone (I develop so many great relationships that way - HI JEN!!). I told her about a service that we wanted to institute in India and she recommended that I speak with a gentleman who she regards as a great entrepreneur. He was also in attendance, so I told him about what we wanted to do and where we are in the process. Now, I didn't get any concrete vibes that he was thinking, "hey, this American has no idea about India - but I do and I can get this up and running before she can", but it did cross my mind. Who is to say that I am not just feeding ideas to the person who has more money and resources for them to just increase their wealth. The movie Flash of Genius is a great example of this.

I am from the school of thought that "if I thought of it, someone else has already thought of it or is doing it". It is not about origination; it is about "first to market". I keep plugging away, head down and I don't want to look up from my work and realize that I missed the boat. Even with Val-ID-ate, we are working against the possibility that a better-funded competitor says "hey, why didn't we think of that? We can pull something together in a month and advertise it everywhere with our big marketing budget". So the race is on.

And here is the other worry: what if we are the Sony Betamax to the competitor's JVC VHS? A better product that didn't get the proper traction to take the market.

Uh oh. I think that I am sounding a bit paranoid...or maybe not...