How do you protect a website idea?
 

Say you wanted to present an idea to someone who you could partner with and could help you make it come to life, how would you prevent them from rejecting it and finding someone else to create it with?

You can't.

NDAs etc aren't worth anything and show you do not trust the person you are talking to.

The only thing you can do is just pitch ideas to people you trust.

imho

I have a stack of NDAs which i signed only to listen to an idea that has been done a hundred thousand times.

You can't control other people's mind... Once you put your idea out there, there's no way of stopping it... and honestly you shouldn't be able to either...

you ask "How do you protect a website idea?" on a public forum

you cant. if its that good an idea, pay for it to be done yourself

I always point people to this when I am asked to sign an NDA, which I will never do.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/start/20...n-your-nda.php

Hmm, is there a site where people can submit ideas and investors can sign an NDA to view them? Maybe each listing will show the names of investors that have jumped onto an idea and this will let other investors know it must be a good idea to be a part of if so many trusted investors have clearly joined in. This would be a good way for people with nothing to get their idea to its furthest potential.

Shit maybe I just wasted an idea right there.. oh well I have plenty of them :/

You're looking for an angel forum / group. Google it, as there's probably one in your city. Generally a couple times a year they'll hold a conference, and give you say a 3 minute shot on stage at pitching your idea to a roomful of investors.

Screw that, if it was online based then any idea could spread like wildfire in a matter of days.

post the idea on this forum and we will keep it a secret.

Investors don't sign NDAs. See my link above.

The only way to protect an idea is simply this:

never tell anyone about it. :D

That's probably the best bet if one doesn't know any potential investors/partners they can trust. If the 3 minute on-stage "pitch" is videotaped at least you have a solid irrefutable record of being the one who came up with the idea.

Well, you wanted an investor, so that's probably your best chance of getting one. Or again, Google for angel investors in your city / region. I know in Vancouver they have an angel group where you can submit proposals that investors can look at.

Or you might get lucky, and just stumble upon the right person, like I did once (although, I fucked it up). I replied to some 3 sentence CraigsList post from someone saying they're looking for the "next best thing". Turns out the guy is worth $600 million. So I went and met in quite unprepared, but gave him a business plan, showed him my technical infrastructure, and explained my vision for it.

He didn't really know what was going on. At the end he just said something like, "Well, looks excellent, you seem like an intelligent guy, and I'm especially interested in the fact you said nothing like this exists yet. I'm not sure what to do though. Would you like me to write you a check?". I politely declined, he told me to stay in contact, but I never did. Talk about me fucking that up royally. The guy was only like 34 years old too, and worth $600 million already, self-made.

Anyway, sorry, point is, don't go in with just an idea. Make sure you have an execution plan in place. Everyone has ideas, and in general, investors don't give a shit about them. They're far more concerned whether or not you're someone who is capable of managing and executing that idea.

Didn't mean to discredit your suggestion, just seems a little old fashioned way of doing stuff.

What if I wasn't internet savvy but had a great idea, shouldn't an investor have resources to manage and execute the idea? If there was a site where the idea people/investors/managers/etc. could all get together that would be nice lol.

i had things in mind, two that i wanted to work on with my friends, both failed hard, friends smells money, project and friendship gone ... now i have other things in mind, but they will stay there as i dont have knowledge to make them by myself and i will not tell again to some asshole how to make easy money :)

just get a boilerplate nda made up. the end.

Might seem old fashioned, but that's where the money is. :-)

Maybe I'm wrong, but I think you're getting this all wrong. Just so you know, "idea people" don't make any money. The people who turn those ideas into a reality are the ones who make money. An investor is there to help you, not take care of everything for you. It's still your company, and your responsibility to turn the idea into reality. You can't just say, "well here's my amazing idea, now give me a million dollars".

Honestly, you're probably best off just saving up, and getting everything developed on your own. Remember, investors are there to fuck you as much as they possibly can. That's the whole reason they're investors. To make as much money with as little investment as they can. If you don't know what you're doing, you're going to get fucked, and probably quite hard.

thats the problem with having an idea
to execute it you have to find a team of trusted people to follow through with it

This is going to sound like an asshole reply, but dude, your idea is worthless... it doesn't even matter what it is... even if it's a great idea, if you don't have the means to execute it, it's still worthless... :2 cents:

:2 cents:

That's the attitude 99% of the people you bring the idea to will have too. Your odds are not good. Everyone wants to minimize your contribution and pay you as little as possible, or even nothing if they can get away with it. In the end I'd say you're better off either shutting up about it until you can execute it yourself or completely release it into the public domain or to someone you like and respect. Personally I'd rather see an idea in the public domain being used by many people than in the hands of some asshole company who paid me either nothing or peanuts and now gets to enjoy a monopoly due to my idea.

I find it hard to believe that EVERY good idea came to fruition solely by it's creator.

Well isn't it usually from some employee on the payroll or in many cases stolen in the way the thread starter seems to fear?

While looking at some of the largest innovations in the technology, I'd say the best ideas come from drunken & high jackasses in their college dorm rooms.

Not solely by the creator, but obviously you need something to show first or at least bring something valuable to the table... it's not like google guys were taking bong hits one day, and dreamed up "lets create a search engine", went to VC guys, and got millions to develop it...

They did the work first, had the technology developed, and then went to the VC guys, "we have this technology, it's patented, it works, we need the dough to get 1000s of servers so we can launch it to the public"... :2 cents:

... but if you can get $$$ to develop some ideas you just dreamed up, then great, more power to you :thumbsup

Go see the Social Network, if they become wildly successful you can sue and then have a movie made about it:-)

Thanks for sharing your idea with me, but I don't think Male Dingleberries will be a winner

If stolen call the internet police...