Startup advice: iPhone developers should stop relying on handshake deals only
deals.venturebeat.com
deals.venturebeat.com
But I have met too many entrepreneurs who were foolish (small f) and lived to regret it dearly. Why take the risk?
Would you give similar quality advice on tecnhnical matters? "why worry about testing your code, just push your updates live". It's bad technical advice and you wouldn't want to give bad legal advice either, would you?
On the flipside, I have met many entrepreneurs who obsess about stopping the world from screwing them, to a degree where it distracts from solving problems from customers for money. See: license agreement text, resistance to money back guarantees, worry about piracy, wanting an NDA executed by a blogger you're pitching your product to, etc etc etc.
Which is funny. I can't shower without having some 'good' idea, and by sharing them - here and elsewhere - I get a pretty good feeling for what could fly and what doesn't stand a chance. I'm counting on my willingness to pursue an idea all the way through to implementation and user support as the edge that will make me win if someone else should want to run with it too.
Let go of the paperwork, get moving. 6 months head start is worth more than all the contracts in the world. And if that head start is not enough to establish yourself then look a little longer for lower hanging fruit, there is plenty of it.