{"id":338,"date":"2011-03-26T09:20:08","date_gmt":"2011-03-26T13:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.payne.org\/?p=338"},"modified":"2011-03-26T09:20:08","modified_gmt":"2011-03-26T13:20:08","slug":"offense-defense-ndas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/payne.org\/blog\/offense-defense-ndas\/","title":{"rendered":"Offense, Defense, and NDAs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A surprising number of entrepreneurs contacting me for investment (or advice) want an NDA before sharing any details. \u00a0I\u00a0politely\u00a0tell them that I don&#8217;t do NDAs, and refer them to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.feld.com\/wp\/archives\/2006\/02\/why-most-vcs-dont-sign-ndas.html\">Brad Feld&#8217;s write ups<\/a>, which explain why most investors take this position.<\/p>\n<p>But I&#8217;m finding there&#8217;s something deeper going on. \u00a0Entrepreneurs that insist on non-disclosures from prospective investors usually have the wrong mindset for building a successful software\/Internet company.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s the difference between playing entrepreneurial offense and defense. \u00a0The &#8220;defense&#8221; mindset is focused on secrecy, protecting access to information, and limiting things. \u00a0The &#8220;offense&#8221; mindset is focused on speed, execution, and iteration.<\/p>\n<p>There <em>are <\/em>times when patent filings and NDAs are appropriate, but I&#8217;ve seen far more ideas fail from under-sharing and for over-sharing. \u00a0By the time you launch, everyone can see what you&#8217;re doing anyway. \u00a0If the idea is good, they&#8217;ll quickly copy it.<\/p>\n<p>The only defense is a good offense: \u00a0share widely, get feedback, attract a great team, and go fast.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A surprising number of entrepreneurs contacting me for investment (or advice) want an NDA before sharing any details. \u00a0I\u00a0politely\u00a0tell them that I don&#8217;t do NDAs, and refer them to Brad Feld&#8217;s write ups, which explain why most investors take this &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/payne.org\/blog\/offense-defense-ndas\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entrepreneurship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/payne.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/payne.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/payne.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/payne.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/payne.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/payne.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/payne.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/payne.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/payne.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}