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Comment by corry | Hacker News Reader

The advice is generally that (1) ideas are worthless until they are well-implemented (and even then, might be worthless); (2) if your idea is truly so easily-copyable, then it's probably not an idea worth trying to protect; and (3) your time is MUCH better spent actually building it and getting users than worrying about this stuff.

You unique ability to translate the idea into a product that people love, and deliver a service that wow's them, is far more valuable than the idea itself.

Of course there are caveats for things that are truly hard innovations, but from the sounds of things here you're more worried about UI (will always be easily copyable, no protection possible) and back-end (which doesn't matter unless it's some completely novel and order-of-magnitude improvement thing, in which case THAT's the true interesting part of your idea).

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This is what I was told by startup mentors and have come to appreciate as well in my experience.

I would also add that while there is some small risk of someone least copying your idea, it's not necessarily a bad thing. If someone else is doing it, it validates that there is a market. You can also expect that if your idea becomes successful it will be copied at some point.

There's actually much more risk in not learning the practicality of it and refining it by talking to as many people as possible than there is from it being copied.

>>>There's actually much more risk in not learning the practicality of it and refining it by talking to as many people as possible than there is from it being copied.

Interesting nugget here. Thanks

I personally do think what I have is order-of-magnitude improvement over anything I have seen. But I may be biased too.

>>>>You unique ability to translate the idea into a product that people love, and deliver a service that wow's them, is far more valuable than the idea itself.

I agree with this. It is more about demoing this to large corp (which do not have anything like my product) just taking it away and executing the idea down the road. My hope is to sell to them eventually

This lecture by Kawasaki addresses the topic: https://youtu.be/HHjgK6p4nrw

If a large corporation steals your idea, you can try to sue if you have taken measures to protect your idea, and in rare cases, even succeed. However, it won't really get you any further.

Hi mrg3_2013,

I've been in this boat,

I agree/disagree with what others say, on one hand yes, most ideas are a dime a dozen and that meme which has been parroted ad nauseaum applies.

OTOH, someone with experience and deep knowledge in a field could come up with a really nice and clever solution to a problem that's potentially worth lots of $$$. Be aware that instead of an "idea", you may be giving out a very expensive consultation for free.

Examples:

It would be nice to be able teleport from one place to another (shitty idea)

vs.

I actually found a way to teleport things from one place to another (not shitty at all)

If your idea looks more like the 2nd example then I'd suggest you take adequate measures to protect what belongs to you and safeguard your right to make money off it.

A contract is your friend. Are you demoing something under the common understanding that it's going to be acquired later? Put that into a contract. Do you want the contents of your presentation to not be disclosed afterwards? Put that into a contract. Whatever makes you feel comfortable, you own your game :).

Best of luck!

So are you saying that OP should be able to share their idea right here without fear?

I think it's rational to worry that someone else will hear the idea and implement it faster/better.

There's this myth that ideas are scarce, or hard to get, or valuable. In the real world that's not true. Ideas are very cheap, very plentiful, and very common.

Ideas are worth nothing. Execution is everything. Picking the -right- idea is a skill. Fruitlessly following some idea into financial oblivion is a weakness.

I would suggest all Ideas first pass a simple test;

A) who is the market for this product. Specifically. Tell me their names what the do, what pain they have (that this solves)

B) can these people afford this product? Sure lots of people want to orbit the earth, how many can afford it?

C) can you reach these people to tell them about your product for finite amounts of money?

D) do you have the resources to develop this, and take it to market?

E) understanding that there's a 90% chance this fails, and your resources will be lost, can you afford to fail?

99% of Ideas will fail one or many of the above tests. That's fine, let it go, you'll have another one tomorrow.

Trust me, copying is the least of your worries.

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