Synnex Canada CEO Jim Estill makes a great point in his blog today about what makes business work - and why startup entrepreneurs needn't fret so over non-disclosure agreements and Keeping Everything Secret.
"It is not the ideas that will make a business successful, it is the implementation."
"When EMJ (Jim's startup firm) was public, I was worried people would see our statements and public disclosures and copy what we were doing. Some tried. Over time I came to realize that implementation is hundreds of little things that tend to be almost impossible to copy.
"Also, businesses are not static. In the rapidly changing business world, in my case accelerated by being in technology, even implementation is a moving target.
"Most entrepeneurs could be more successful by simply implementing now and faster rather than trying to keep everything a secret. I have seen more failures caused by inaction than caused by having ideas stolen."
In my experience, when the lawyers and the NDAs are in the room, it's time to get out. As the goddess Nike might have said, "Just Do it."
1 comment:
wonderful article and a good reminder for would-be entrepreneuers.
I think one of the questions becomes, though, how do you determine what ideas are worth implementing? Market research, I suppose, but that requires a committment in (usually) both time and money.
I know that I'm successful because I've "acted." I wonder about all the times I didn't act, and what could be of me now if I had acted :)
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