I have a very good idea but I am scared to death of submitting my idea to venture capitalists

by dizen
8 replies
Hi Folks ,

I have an idea that I think is very good, in fact I never seen this idea implemented on the Internet ever.

My idea is very good . I am pretty confident about it, so condifent about it that I am willing to risk my last valuable asset, a house that is currently priced around $250.000 - 280.000 based on market price. Venture capitalist can take my house if my idea doesn't make the money and I am willing to sign a contract for this clause before a lawyer.


Why I Am Scared To Submit My Business Plan To VCs
=================================================
- My idea is very good, again I never seen this idea implemented on the Internet ever. The thought of the VC stealing my idea without supplying funding for me is very scary to me. I don't want someone to steal my idea.
- I live in Jakarta, SE Asia, there are a lot of VCs here (even in third world countries, $500.000 is a miniscule amount of money for a VC, really) but most of them are VCs for offline businesses that don't want/not interested in funding a dot com startup company.
- There is no lack of dot com VCs in US. However due to geographical barrier . I don't think they will be very interested in my proposal since I don't live in US.


There must be one of you here who is a VC or have experience in getting funding from a VC.
How do you guys get funding from VC? and don't you feel scared at all if the VS steal your ideas?
I really want to submit detailed, professional business application with graphs, revenue projection etc to VCs but again ... I am scared to death about my idea being stolen. This is a dillema for me.

What is your opinion on this ?


Why I Need Venture Capitalist:
===============================
- My wife will never let me to sell the house. If I am still single, I will sell it without hesitation just for this project, however If I can get a VC to fund my project with my house as a collateral, I think I can get her to accept it but I want share of at least 51%. Why? Because it's my idea and I assume equal risk as the VC plus I will do most of the work, so it is just natural for me to ask a stake of 51% or more.
- Even If I sell my house , say $ 250.000,- . It is still not enough because I need $ 500.000 of money in total for safety net and unexpected things (worst,pessimistic scenario)
- The cost of making the site is not expensive , however the marketing/promotion part of it will be expensive plus I can't do it alone. I need a team of several professionals working under me.
- I will have someone that expect a progress report from me , this will help me to stay focused on this project.
- A partner with solid experience is preferred so that his experience/skill sets can complement mine.

About Me :
==========

I started my career as web programmer back in 1996 and as a full time IMer since 2000 (No big deal at all).

I built several successfull authority sites that is growing consistently without much efforts from my side, made decent income from them until I sold them for 30x monthly revenue (again nothing biggie about this) and plunge all the money into US and Asian stock market back in 2008-2009. This is the biggest mistakes of my life that I trully regret.

A thread about my situation still can be found in a trading forum.
Desperately Seeking for Help - Traders Laboratory Forums

I thought I was smart, I keep saying to myself trading stocks is very simple compared to object oriented programming, RDBMS and other technical tech stuffs.

Boy, I was wrong, technical analysis is one of the pillars of stock trading but stock trading is not a science.Pyschology plays very great role in stock trading, but then again who would ever think that 2008-2009 are the years of one of the biggest financial disaster in wall street history? Before 2008, trading gurus, economist, experts were all optimistic about the stock market.

So, again what do you think?

There must be one of you here who is a VC or have experience in getting funding from a VC.
How do you guys get funding from VC? and don't you feel scared at all if the VS steal your ideas?
I really want to submit detailed, professional business application with graphs, revenue projection etc to VCs but again ... I am scared to death about my idea being stolen. This is a dillema for me.

What is your opinion on this ?

Thanks
#capitalists #death #good #idea #scared #submitting #venture
  • Profile picture of the author thekidebomb
    Why not just get a patent on it, and make any VC sign a non disclosure agreement... If he steals your product, and you have a Solid NDA with witnesses (your and his lawyer, and probably a notary), the law suit will be your startup capital lol
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  • Profile picture of the author lotsofsnow
    If you try to sell an idea it can be very tricky.

    But you wrote that you are a programmer. So, build the site and then find somebody to invest. That way there is not a lot of risk that somebody steals it and also you have something to show.

    I completely do not understand why you have to use your house. That part does not make sense.
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  • Profile picture of the author brentb
    No experienced & reputable VC will just sign an NDA agreement. To ask is to get shut down immediately.

    Think of what you bring to the table other than an idea that could be copied by anyone. If you don't have some type of unique advantage of why YOU should be getting funded then they will not invest. Not because the idea isn't good but because you are not the right person to put it in motion.

    If its able to be patented (do it), or you have unique expertise in this area, or you have already done a large chunk of legwork... those are reasons why they should invest in YOU! Its not about the idea so much, VCs look at who is the person/people putting it in motion. You are literally 75% of the cause for getting funded or denied, not your idea. They need to believe in you.

    If it really is a great idea that anyone could do, and that you have no specific reason on why a VC would invest in you, then get family and friends to sign NDAs and give you money, it will fly there at least. No shame in doing that either, thats how many start ups get off the ground.

    Let me know if you have questions.
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  • Profile picture of the author iAmNameLess
    Your issue is going to be that you're wreckless. I don't know of many situations where VC's will respect that you're willing to throw everything a way to go with your gut. You need more than a gut feeling and an idea. You need a business model, a market, proven projections.

    It's nice that you're willing to give your house up in exchange for funding, but I don't think that is the responsible thing to do. In fact, such financial irresponsibility would immediately cancel any opportunity you would have with me.

    If your idea, and your plan is THAT good, then you don't NEED to give your house away to get funding.

    Is your idea something you can trademark? Can you put it in form of product so you can patent it somehow or is it purely internet based?

    Can you make them sign an NDA or non compete?
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    • Profile picture of the author brentb
      It's standard VC practice not to sign NDAs because it opens them, people with money to lose, to lawsuits.

      Example: Y Combinator writes they may unintentionally seed two startups with the same business model. What if a VC signs a non compete with you, then a similar but not the same company does get funding from them. Now their model falls through and it makes business sense for them to change to what you are doing because they already have the right setup... see the problem?

      If they did steal your idea, they would lose credibility for sure, who would pitch to them after that? you know?

      I wouldn't worry about them stealing your idea per se, but I would worry about your chance of them actually funding you...
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  • Profile picture of the author TheSalesBooster
    First you really need to find out if your idea is really practical or any good. Talk about it with someone or even post a vague idea of what your idea entails. It would suck if you sold your house and invested it into this idea that you have only to find out it was a terrible idea and someone could of stopped you from making that mistake.
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  • Profile picture of the author Paul5632
    Banned
    [DELETED]
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    • Profile picture of the author R. Shawner
      Traditional VC's aren't the only game in town. If you do the legwork (proper business plan, roadmaps with milestones, risk and potential analysis, etc.) you can even get funding from traditional banks, however they're a bit averse of online businesses in my experience.

      Another great way to get funded is to pitch business angel investors. they will not only provide you money but also knowledge and almost most importantly their high quality industry contacts. A good friend of mine actually got funded by an angel investor ring and he said he'd recommend it to everyone based on his perception of additional value received.

      Last but not least there is crowd funding which I have also heard good things about. Neither me nor my inner circle have any experience with this one, but it might be worth looking into it a bit further.

      about the idea stealing: Really, do patent it if that's possible. If it's not, and you can't get funding from any other places, I'm afraid you'll most likely have to take the risk.
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  • Profile picture of the author dizen
    Thanks for the input guys .... I will consider the suggestion for patent ...
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