Investors?

[siforek]

This really has nothing to do with hosting, in fact it'll be the first project of mine not associated with hosting in quite a while.. Well, other than that it'll be on web server(s)..

Over the last few months I really started to see the power in social networking sites.. Well, let me put it this way: I always new the power, but never knew how to truly harness it, or how I could get a piece of the action. Come to find out that anything is possible

I planted a seed a few months ago to develop a unique, one of a kind idea that would bee a genuine asset to the world wide web and it's users. There's been hours of free time I've pondered, tore my hair out, thought I had it, but then tore more hair.. :smashthink you get the point).. To no avail, so I let it subside.

Then it came to me in the middle of an email as I told someone "there should be a place where ______" and eureka! From one idea stemmed others and so on..

From my basic understanding I'll need to pass my business plan through a NDA to prospective investors?

I'd like to keep my personal investment minimal as I'll be doing all the initial development(200+ hours).. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[webfreak08]

I'd like to keep my personal investment minimal

You should phrase it that you are investing all of your time with your unique skills rather than saying you'd like to keep your personal investment minimal. If even you want to keep your investment minimal, why should an outside investor even bother?

 

[handsonhosting]

Congrats on the new idea! NDA's are a big part of the final steps before going forward into a laucnh. You'll need to put together at least an outline of a business plan so that you can show to potential investors. Keep in mind that investors like to be shown the pie in the sky. They don't want to have to imagine how something will work, or how numbers may play out. The more you have on paper (or even a working model), the easier it will be to bring those people on board.

Sign and date your idea and send it to your attorney so that you have a record of when you started working on the project. You can "poor man copyright" the idea also by putting it into an envelope and mailing it back to yourself, then don't open the envelope. This way if needed, you now have a timestamp from the postoffice etc. This works for VERY BASIC court cases

Wish I had the money to invest in your new ideas (depending on the idea of course), but if you ever wanted to bounce thoughts around and you're just looking for another ear for input, I'd be happy to talk to you and get you pumped up about your idea! Attitude and motivation are two of the biggest keys to success.

 

[webfreak08]

Not so fast.

What does copyright protect?
Copyright, a form of intellectual property law, protects original works of authorship including literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works, such as poetry, novels, movies, songs, computer software, and architecture. Copyright does not protect facts, ideas, systems, or methods of operation, although it may protect the way these things are expressed.

http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-general.html

If you think you have the next Facebook and want to dedicate every waking hour for the rest of your life to this, get an attorney.

 

[SenseiSteve]

Poor Man's Copyright - see

There is no provision in the copyright law regarding any such type of protection, and it is not a substitute for registration.

Congrats on the new idea. Good luck to you.

 

[handsonhosting]

Any time I've had to do NDA's, I've always run it past my attorney, but then I've always had a working model before seeing NDA's, so maybe that was what the protection was on (rather than the idea).

You can't copyright the idea as in "I want to build a site", but if you document a highly detailed design plan, flow charts and other documents for example, you could copyright that information.

(in England) the moment the idea takes a tangable form in any way, you can protect it - http://www.ipo.gov.uk/

It seems things get a little reversed between the US laws and UK laws. I'll have to do some digging for US pattent and copyrights - but the moment the idea takes form, it can be and shoudl be protected (from what I've read)

 

[Rob]

@Conor
http://www.uspto.gov/ is the site for patents and trademarks if you are in the us - that is I think... Im in the UK you see

NDA's are always good ideas and my advise would be to patent the idea / or get it properly copyrighted so no investors can steal your idea - It has been known!

 

[siforek]

You should phrase it that you are investing all of your time with your unique skills rather than saying you'd like to keep your personal investment minimal. If even you want to keep your investment minimal, why should an outside investor even bother?

You're right, that's not the way I should have phrased it. I am making a considerable investment.. My time & skills.

I'm honestly not so concerned about copyright. The reason being is that although it's an original idea/concept, there's so much to it. Once it's launched the idea is out there, so I'm just trying to keep it under wraps until then.

Let's use Digg as an example. It's obviously the leader/founder of it's type of sites, but by no means has it copyrighted "the idea" & they have competitors. How many ebay, myspace, twitter, and youtube clones are there?