The Wonsys Blog

All the cool kids — or better, yet, the ones who think they are the cool kids — are always happy to talk with you, but only after you sign an NDA.

My opinion on NDAs — but I can safely assume Simone and Matteo feel the same way about it — is they are useless, plus they set things on a bad trail right from the start.
When you’re asking for an NDA to be signed, you’re often making a clear statement, no matter how much you try to deny it: “I don’t trust you, so sign this paper.”
If you ask me to sign an NDA, I’ll think you probably don’t trust me and it will obviously make things worse, because there’s no way I can work with/for someone who doesn’t trust me or my company right from the beginning with no apparent reason.

If you feel like you should have someone sign an NDA before you talk with him/her, then you shouldn’t talk to that person at all.
NDAs can play a (marginal) role in protecting your idea, but what’s even better is to only work with people you can trust.

To me it doesn’t matter wether I sign an NDA or not: I won’t talk about another person’s idea anyway!
If we talk to a potential client about a project and then we decide not to work together, there’s no way we’re going to spill the beans or start something similar. And this is not due to us signing an NDA — which we’d rather not for the aforementioned reasons –, it’s due to us being professional and honest people.

And don’t even get me started on NDAs that don’t define a clear scope — how can I sign it if I don’t even know what we’re talking about? is it an accounting app, social networking website or pizza? — and/or include some ridiculous penalty.
I can see why one might want to put a penalty in place, but don’t make it big: unless we’re talking about a multi million Euro/Dollar contract, you’ll really look unprofessional and a bit dishonest.

I’m not saying NDAs are always bad, but they’re much less useful than people think, mainly because there are many people using them in the wrong contest and in the wrong way.
If you’re dealing with some technology or procedure which is not patented, yet, than it might make sense, but if you only have to contact a contractor to build an average app, then you are really off-target.

This post was written by Michele 1 year, 4 months ago on April 24th, 2007 mid-afternoon.