MBA2579 Q&A Wednesday: How Do I Protect My Idea From Being Stolen?

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You can't protect an idea. I'll explain why in today's episode and show you what to do instead. Welcome Back to the $100 MBA Show. I'm your host, Omar Zenholm, where I give you practical business lessons three times a week. Monday, Wednesday, Friday. My job on this podcast is to help you start, grow and scale a business. Today's Q and A Wednesday's question from Thomas is an important one because many people, especially in the startup world, are terrified somebody's going to run with their idea, they're going to steal it, they're going to take it away, and they're going to become billionaires without them. In fact, I've had entrepreneurs come to me asking me to sign an NDA before they share their business plan or their business idea to get feedback or coaching. And my answer is always the same. Ideas are dime a dozen. There's ideas everywhere. We all have ideas. How many times have you seen a product in the real world on maybe a store shelf? Or maybe you saw an ad on TV or on social media, and you're like, oh, I had this idea. I thought of this product before. The difference between you and the person that created the product is that they created the product, they implemented the idea. And here's just the bottom line. You cannot protect an idea. You can only protect how you implement it from a legal standpoint. I'm going to break it down and I'm going to show you how to move forward despite fear. The first lesson I want to share with you is why this mindset holds you back in the first place. Why the mindset itself is worse than you trying to protect the idea. Worrying that somebody's going to steal your idea is actually a really costly way of thinking. You need to actually share your idea to get feedback. If you don't tell anyone about your idea, how will you know if it's good? How will you get feedback that is crucial to improving your product or service and figuring out if it's even worth building and marketing? When I started my software company, Webinar Ninja, back in 2014, I told everyone about it. Anybody with a pulse. Why? Because I needed real feedback and I needed a way to get this feedback. How am I going to do this without telling people? Also, I was highly aware when I got started, I had nothing right? I had no customers, I had no product, I had no revenue. What am I going to lose? I have everything to gain by sharing the idea, by sharing how I'm going to implement it, how I'm going to solve the problem so that I can be able to refine it and and then put it out in the world. That feedback shaped what Webinar Ninja became. And then 10 years later, it had over 30,000 users, it made millions of dollars, and it got acquired by a big company called Proprofs. I firmly believe if I was so scared to share my idea in those early days, it would never get off the ground and I wouldn't have gotten the feedback I needed. Worse, I could have started too late because I was so scared and I didn't get into the market fast enough. I didn't get enough traction, and I would have got clobbered, maybe even by the competition, because I so hung up on somebody stealing my idea. The second thing I want to share with you is a little technical. You can't protect an idea, only the implementation. Here's the hard truth, and you can look this up for yourself. Ideas themselves can't be trademarked or copyrighted. You can't own an idea. You can only own how it's executed. For example, Facebook wasn't the first social network. There was Friendster, there was MySpace. They all came before Facebook. The difference is Facebook executed the idea of a social network. Better. They focused on clean design exclusivity in the beginning with only college campuses, and then they expanded beyond that. They focused on scalability. The idea wasn't unique, the idea of a social media platform, but the implementation of the idea was game changing. So keep this in mind. The success you want so bad isn't about having a unique idea. It's about executing on that idea better than anyone else. And the execution will constantly change as you put it out in the world and get feedback. So as an action step, once you start shifting your focus from how do I protect my idea and not tell anybody to refining your implementation, ask yourself, how can I execute this idea so well that no one can actually compete with me? They can actually replicate what I'm doing. The third thing I want to pass on to you is how do you share your idea strategically? Let me make sure I'm clear. Sharing idea doesn't mean shouting it from the rooftops without a plan. You got to have a strategy. The first part of the strategy is you want to focus on getting feedback from your target audience. Tell people that are most likely to buy your product or service. They'll give you the most valuable feedback. Too many people, they ask their friends and family. Regardless if they are the target demographic for your product or service, that's the first people they go to like, hey, what do you think of my new idea, my new product? You got to ask yourself first, who am I asking? Because the feedback they give me won't be that valuable if they're not actually a buyer. They're not actually somebody who would actually exchange money and even put a deposit on what I'm offering. So it's better for you to talk to strangers. That would be a target customer. Somebody that would actually benefit from what you're offering. Their feedback is valuable.

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The second thing is you want to network with experts and find some mentors in your game, in your sphere, in your area. Share your idea with people who can really help you improve it. Like industry experts or mentors. For example, when I started a webinar Ninja, my webinar software, I had a dinner with a lot of entrepreneurs. A lot of these entrepreneurs were authors. There were speakers on stages and they ran a lot of webinars to sell their programs and sell their books. I had lots of chats with them over dinners to find out what kind of software would actually meet their needs because they are already doing webinars. I'm not trying to convince somebody to do a webinar. I asked them to use my my software and give me feedback and that really helped me a lot in those early days to refine my product and create a superior product for my target audience. The third thing you could do is to start marketing early. The sooner you market your product or service, the sooner you can validate your idea and build an audience and make some sales again. When I started webinar Ninja, I pre sold this product. I actually had a landing page up on our website. It was a one page landing page that described the problem I was solving and how it was solving it with my software. And we pre sold it asking people to give money and they will get the software in four or five months when we're done building it. And they got like a really special deal. And that really helped us a lot because it validated that people are willing to put money down on the promise that we will solve a real pain point. If it wasn't a real pain point, they wouldn't have put their money down. They wouldn't actually part ways with their hard earned dollar. The fourth thing I want to share with you is you need to focus on what makes your execution unique. I talked about this earlier, but I want to go a little deeper. Your competitive edge isn't your idea, it's how you execute it. Your execution is going to make all the difference and going to make you stand out from the competition. So let's talk about that. What are some of the areas that you could focus on, first thing is customer experience. Focus on delivering the best possible experience for your customers. That makes them smile, that makes them say, wow, this is cool, this is new, this is different. That experience is something that is unique to you. And it's very hard to copy even small things. For example, in the early days of Webinar Ninja, when somebody signed up, they'd get an automated email that had a little animated gif of a little Ninja doing a backflip. And this would just say, hey, we're just here doing backflips celebrating the fact that you have signed up. It was a little small, little touch and a little bit of humor and it really was memorable. And people used to take screenshots of that and share on social media. Second thing you do is focus on building a strong brand. People don't just buy products, they buy into a brand, a reputation. Building a brand really is about building something that resonates with your audience. So, for example, if your target audience are musicians, you may want to make some references in your email, copy in your sales, copy in your social media post to lyrics from songs that they would know, maybe some puns that relate to bands or musicians that are well known to your audience. This resonates with your audience and knows that, hey, this company speaks my language. And thirdly, you want to be consistent with all your efforts so that you can improve. The best businesses succeed because they're consistently getting better over time. They're trying something, they're learning, they're getting feedback. They improve over and over and over on a daily basis. Every little part of the business is all about that, whether it's the marketing, whether it's the sales, whether it's the product itself. You're just constantly iterating, getting feedback, improving. And it only happens if you're consistent. If you just try to do that once or twice and forget about it, you just don't have that momentum. Guys, to wrap up, I'm going to give you another example of why the execution of your idea makes all the difference. And that's Tesla. Tesla cars. Let's put Elon Musk aside, whether you love him or hate him for a moment, and let's just talk about what Tesla did for electric cars. Tesla wasn't the first electric car. There were a lot of electric cars before Tesla. Even big manufacturers were making electric cars and it just wasn't popular. People didn't buy them. Electric cars really gained traction when Tesla got into the game. The reason why they did so well, well, and are the most valuable car company in the world now is because they executed on an idea way better than any other electric car manufacturer. They said, we don't want electric cars to be boring, right? We want to be fast, we want to be luxurious, we want to be innovative. All this amazing tech and it really set them apart. People started to see electric cars differently because of the way they executed on their business plan. So, Thomas and everybody else who's tuning in, the best way to protect your idea is to focus on the execution. That's really it. Execute better and you'll be great. Share your idea, get feedback and build your audience. Focus on refining your implementation. This is what makes your idea valuable, right? And number three, keep improving your execution to stay ahead of the competition by staying consistent. And most importantly, don't let the fear of someone stealing your idea hold you back. Ideas don't build businesses. Execution does. Thanks for tuning in to the $100 MBA show. And thanks, Thomas. Asking Today's Question if you have a question you want to ask, we can answer it for you right here on Q and A Wednesday. We can mention by name or keep it Anonymous. Just go to 100- MBA-NETQ, submit your question there and we'll take care of it and we'll get you on the show. Not only are you helping yourself, but you're helping hundreds of thousands of listeners and viewers of this podcast get better in business with your question. I'm Omar Zenom and I'll see you in the next episode. Take.

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