App idea protection

Belloni said:
That's what I'm worried about.

So the safest bet is to save enough money to pay a developer and keep it between him/her and myself?
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This is a bad idea. I think you really need to realise that your idea isn't worth that much. A good idea is pointless without good design and implementation and that's where all the value added is.
 
What you could do if you know some good coders is offer them sweat equity, a share of the business. Then you dont have to pay them as such. It's very difficult to find them though unless you already know them from uni or work.
 
kwerk said:
What you could do if you know some good coders is offer them sweat equity, a share of the business. Then you dont have to pay them as such.
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Only dumb, naive or gullible developers go for those kind of deals these days. And they're not the kind of people you want handling your idea.
 
In your shoes I would teach myself done of the skills needed and then contract out for the parts I'm not able to do. But you do need to offer more than just an idea to get it off the ground.
 
Ultimately I think if you have an idea you are serious about, especially if you think it might make a bit of money, you do whatever you can to get it to market. If you can't program or design, then if you are realistic, you need to employ people to do it. You might not get to that without funds available or a loan, but then that's business right.
 
If it is that good of an idea, learn to code and program it yourself.

As stated, you have nothing but an idea and contribute NOTHING but that idea. You are not in a position of worth to be approaching anyone.
 
There will be an app for that already :-)

Anyway, if it is for IOs, you have to go through the apple app approval process.

If it is indeed an insanely great idea, they may stop it form being published, and low an behold a similar official app will be released.
 
Belloni said:
That's what I'm worried about.

So the safest bet is to save enough money to pay a developer and keep it between him/her and myself?
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The safest bet is to forget the NDA and tell people your idea without hoops. That way, the people who a) think the idea is good and b) are willing to work with you instead of screw you over, will actually know of your idea and be able to help you out with it.

That said, if anyone can roll with your idea without your specialist knowledge or experience and you do not have the ability to create the idea yourself or don't add some value to the business yourself in some way, then your idea is probably crap and if it's not people are still not going to want to work with you.

Spunkey said:
Only dumb, naive or gullible developers go for those kind of deals these days. And they're not the kind of people you want handling your idea.
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Nothing wrong with working for/because of equity. I'd happily work for equity alone, personally. It would totally need to be a 50/50 split (assuming 2 people) and you'd have to bring value table as a business partner and I'd need to think the business was worthwhile.

The problem is "idea men" who want to give you 20% of their company after you sign an NDA and do all the work for them whilst they sit on their fat backside and criticise you for their own failings. Then theres the people who'll try and screw you out of what you earned, etc.
 
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Ideas have little value until someone does something with them. Take all the anti Apple crew (as one of a million possible examples) who spend all their time telling the world that Apple's aren't that special and X or Y had the iPhone idea first......but never bothered with it. The value of an idea is when people buy it, not thinking of it and gauging what people will buy is the real value play.

In the position of the MD I would be basing my view on two things. The idea and your value to me in realising it. If the idea is solid and you bring something more than just the idea I invest and lock you in. If the idea is good and you're are a 1 trick pony (ie you have an idea but little or nothing else) I steal it. If your idea is crap and you are useless I remove the mug from your hand and wish you a nice day.....then take the **** out of you to my PA, probably with a Pahhh, kids of today somewhere.

Keep your discussions conceptually but have a view on how you will do it and what resources you need to do it, but try and avoid telling people exactly how you would do it (if that is the innovation). NDA's are rarely worth the paper they are written on in tech.
 
NathanE said:
You don't own cloud servers.
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Sure you can, but then you'll need significant investment if you want to run a proper cloud. Most companies don't though, they just have virtual servers in one data centre stack, with a control panel / API afaik.

Still, thats a lot of work if all you really want to do is run a small website, so for most people you probably shouldn't own your cloud, which is probably more of your point.
 
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