What If They Steal My Idea?

I’ve come across a great number of people who have brilliant business ideas but they are afraid to share them because the ideas may be “stolen”. Do you know that feeling? When your idea is so “genius” that you have to keep it in, strategize, plan, and when the time is right, you will have it all built and then release it to the public.

Unfortunately, this is pretty naive. I find that people who have only began thinking of “business ideas” are the ones who fear that their ideas may be stolen.

Let me tell you a story. I once had what I thought as a brilliant, God-given, unique idea that would make me billions. Yes, billions. Naturally, I was very afraid that someone may steal my wonderful idea. I thus kept it to myself and just kept on building on it. Since I was not a programmer/web developer back then, when I had the idea fully fleshed out, I approached some techies seeking a partnership. What I found was astonishing.

As I started befriending programmers and web developers and began telling my idea to them, I realized that the developers I was interested in partnering with didn’t care too much about my “genius idea” but were much more interested in what I brought to the partnership. What kind of skills did I have? What kind of connections did I have? What was my reason for pursuing what I was doing? What did I know about my industry?

You are bigger than your ideas. It is always good to have “genius ideas” but you need to reach a level where YOU as a person are more valuable than your idea, a level where you are valuable independent of your idea. In other words, you need to get to the point where people realize that your “genius idea” cannot succeed unless you are part of the team.

Still, so what if they just steal the idea? The fact is, once you start marketing to the public, the whole world will know about your idea. if the idea is good enough then competitors will pop up and they will try to outdo you – and some of them will have very deep pockets. But, the thing is that anyone can try and copy you, but no one can actually be you.

They can steal your idea, but no one can steal your style, your creativity, and your drive to succeed. That is what should make your business different, and successful.