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Then there is that time when you are giving a Tech Talk with a guy who’s building a startup across Europe and you see the guy, sitting in the back seats, asking for patents. In a mix of arrogance and egocentrism, you reply saying that “if you are thinking about patents, it means you don’t have anything in your hands”. That was true. There are still people who are thinking about software patents without having built anything.
Leaving apart the disgusting idea of using software patents, the point, in that case, was that the guy didn’t want to share what he was building or thinking to build. There are those people, with a business background, who don’t know how to build what they think and that’s why they are more likely to keep in “stealth mode” their projects; but there are also those who want to share everything, even the proprietary algorithms they are using.
The first stereotype of individual, that is constantly looking for a programmer to build “the next big thing”, which often ends up being a Facebook remake or a Twitter one, doesn’t belong to the tech world and that’s why those ideas never see the light. The problem is that without a technical background, these people tend to think they have a great idea, but then when they face the reality in front of a technical guy, what they had wasn’t anything.
The biggest mistake of the past months that I personally made was signing a non disclosure agreement because a guy wanted to show me his “idea”. The result was that the whole idea collapsed when we started talking about the infrastructure that the guy was supposed to build. I still think the NDA I signed wasn’t covering anything, because the idea was trying to get a concept such as “Word of Mouth” and bring it somewhere.
The lesson learned was “never sign a NDA” and “stay away from those who don’t want to share”. If you aren’t willing to share, there are two possible outcomes. You are an extremely technical person, which is implementing a technological breakthrough, or you are a non technical individual who hasn’t got a clue. In both cases, the best thing to do is to share your idea. Why?
The reason is that when we are developing something such as an app or a website, we end up living in our own world. If you are the god of your own world, you won’t be able to see your product from a different point of view. What might seem the next big thing could be a useless product. Feedback is always a good thing and if you try to share what you are building with the people who might use it, that’s a win.
If you see the spark in their eyes, while they play with your product, you are in. If you don’t see it, something needs to be changed. Operating in stealth mode is something I don’t understand. There are startups that want to brand themselves and say “we exist”, but they are still in stealth. The principle should be that you don’t exist if you are in stealth, because your presence is worth nothing.
Stealth is good if you are innovating (drastically), but if you are building an app or even a website such as Facebook, you need to take that idea out as soon as possible and let people play with a prototype. Especially in the app market, building a prototype may take less than a month, if you are an experienced programmer, which means that it takes less time to build it and see if people like it, rather than planning it or writing a business model.
If you want a billion dollar company, you don’t need a business model, you need users.
