"I need your help, I have an excellent idea, but before you know what it is, you must sign a confidentiality agreement." It is very common to hear expressions like this on the part of some entrepreneurs, when approaching a consultant or investor for the first time when they are in search of support for the development or financing of your idea. What if this idea has already been developed elsewhere, and the entrepreneur do not know? What this would need a consultant or investor of trouble? Usually under these conditions, the most common response is: "I am not interested to know what is your idea."

It is the concern or fear that an entrepreneur can feel when handling an innovative idea. This may suggest that if a competitor finds out, it could act quickly, or perhaps another individual with greater financial resources might copy your idea and implement it in less time. So many entrepreneurs appeal to the simplest solution: try to protect themselves with a contract of confidentiality from day one. Although it is an outlet that can soothe a little anxiety is certainly not the most intelligent.

Trying to input a confidentiality agreement would leave the entrepreneur in the eyes of financiers as a professional amateur, or as an individual who puts obstacles and difficulties from day one. In turn, generate a climate of mistrust that ultimately could lead to the failure, and thus the realization of this idea.

To many investors and consultants, information that an entrepreneur might qualify as confidential at the time of submitting your idea would be some algorithm, process or formula, customer lists, information or data specific to customer information from third parties, among others. That is, any resources or technical detail that the entrepreneur possesses, and which could be key to developing your business. However, what the consultant or financier always want to know is: the business model, which does or plans to make the new company, statistics and estimates of the market, description of products or services, and profile of people who are behind this idea or business

The idea itself is not essential. What is really essential is the work team. If the latter is really performing well, most likely this idea will materialize successfully and can never be copied exactly.

Instead of trying to protect their idea by making it super-secret, the entrepreneur should be exposed to intelligent people with experience or potential clients, even with others who have succeeded or failed with similar ideas, so as to anticipate faults and flaws that could become very expensive mistakes when implementing it.