Ask HN: Do you sign NDAs up front?

5 points·MagnitudeSw··5 comments

I've recently been looking for some side iOS work. It seems that everyone wants to protect their idea with an NDA before even talking.

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I would never sign an NDA without at least a high-level overview first... how can you say you won't disclose "their" idea when it could be something completely trivial that 100 people have thought of? Signing an NDA under circumstances like that is just begging for trouble.

Now if they can make it clear that there actually is some sort of "secret sauce" that's likely to be a truly unique idea, with some reasonable degree of specificity, then sure, I'd consider signing an NDA (depending on the exact wording). To that point, it might be worth having your own NDA drawn up, where you know in advance that the language is reasonable, and proactively offer up your own NDA to these folks, instead of having to wrangle of the language in their NDA.

Good point. I say I never sign an NDA, full stop. There's no way that I can know their competitors are working on the same idea.

Only if there is an explicit guarantee of work. They are asking you to give up something, you should be compensated for that. I would get them to sign an intent before I would sign an NDA. This way they are bound to contract you if they move forward with the NDA. You still have a right to say no to the work, but they are protected from you saying no and then implementing their idea. I think it is a fair middle ground if they have a problem with the intent they are just wasting your time anyways.

This is a great article that I identify with: http://blog.jpl-consulting.com/2012/04/why-i-wont-sign-your-...

I would never sign an NDA with exception to acquisition talks or something important. Things like this, I'll pass.

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