Last week a starting entrepreneur approached me via LinkedIn. That has happened a few times, and I think it is good that founders try to make contact with potential interesting or helpful people. That often leads to being a send a deck (a pitch or proposal), and quite often unsolicited. But, that is not relevant for this month’s blog.
The proposal I was sent claimed to be the next big thing since sliced bread, and they were very excited to tell me all about it, but sign this non disclosure (or NDA) first…. Quite; that is NOT going to happen. As a rule I have never signed an NDA. Reason for that is simple. In order to do my work, and see if your startup is interesting for me and whether I can add value I always talk about that with a few people in my network. Secondly, I think the whole notion of it is obsolete. If I were to talk about your idea just randomly with people, I would be out of business before year end. It is an unwritten rule that we share information, and do that professionally.
In short, think you shoot yourself in the foot by asking for a non disclosure agreement….