Question
Hi everyone,
In our web application users can add their ideas to a database that we make available for potential, manually verified investors to browse. Does a general (printed, signed, scanned and emailed) ND agreement between us (the facilitator) and the verified investor (that forbids the share or use of any of the ideas / IPs listed in our database without the consent of its enlisting owner), serves as a strong enough protection, should litigation be necessary in the future, or if not, what other protective steps should / could we take. Thanks!
Answers: 2 public & 0 private
Ideas are not unique and most professional investors would be hesitant in constraining their ability to invest in another startup with parallel (but not derivative) market. However, the conundrum is how to separate investors with devTeams who use the market insight (which is often the most challenging aspect) to leapfrog the proponent. Litigation is not the cut & dried decision you paint it as.
I suggest you just do the background check, whether investor has a stable of developers (conflict of interest), whether investor has a reputation of being a me-too thinker by asking what their investment thesis is and only screening for close matches (so quarantine non-pertinent ideas).
Frankly most ICT ideas are really not that unique so if the distinguishing factor is execution, better spend your time/energy on improving the success rate than arguing.
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