I was going through Wil Schroter's write-up on " why investors don't sign NDA's " and i found it so informative, exciting and insightful enough to share on my blog... Please sit back, take a good position and enjoy every bit of it.

Why Investors Don't Sign NDAs

There’s a popular misconception amongst first-time entrepreneurs that sharing an idea without signing a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) will lead to some version of The Social Network, where Mark Zuckerberg, played by Jesse Eisenberg, steals the Facebook idea and becomes a billionaire.

The mythology sounds horrifying, but the reality is much different.

In short — investors don’t sign NDAs. They won’t sign your NDA. Asking them to will make you look like you don’t know what you’re doing, and there are a few reasons for that.

No One Wants Your Idea

Zuckerberg didn't just magically hear about an idea and create Facebook.

You may have the world’s most amazing idea. It may be a complete pile of rubbish. Either way, it’s not about ideas.

Investors want entrepreneurs, not ideas. Anyone can come up with a great idea, but very few can actually pull them off.

It’s not that Mark Zuckerberg just happened to steal an idea for social networking. It’s that he was the most capable person to actually pull it off. It’s not like he was the first (Friendster, anyone?) or the first to be successful (Myspace, anyone?).

A clever idea may pique an investor’s interest, but that isn’t worth getting ahead of yourself and demanding a NDA. You’ve got plenty of other hurdles.

Don’t Make Life Harder

On average investors see 20 deals per week. That amounts to over 1,000 deals per year. Signing a NDA could potentially prevent them from having a meaningful discussion with any potential investment after yours.

Should they choose not to invest (and most won’t) they would be stuck with the liability of a legal contract with you that prevents them from finding more deals. There are literally no benefits for the investor to sign a NDA.

Now imagine you’re an investor looking at hundreds of deals. You find one that looks interesting and you reach out. The startup responds by saying you need to sign a NDA.

Do you go through the hassle of signing a NDA or do you just move on to the hundreds of other startups who aren’t asking for a document that no one ever signs? You can probably guess.

It’s hard enough to get an investor to pick you among hundreds of other deals. Don’t make your life harder by insisting on them signing a document that they don’t need to.

You Can’t Enforce It

The power of any legal agreement is proportionate to your ability to enforce it. Do you plan on suing investors in the near future? Do you think the power of the document you’ve asked them to sign will give you adequate grounds to enforce that suit?

Probably not.

Focus on what you can control, which is what information you show them and what aspects of the business you are willing to share.

Share The Cookie, Not The Recipe

Share the goodness, not how you make it.

If your idea is so easily stolen that just hearing the concept is enough to allow anyone to replicate it and launch it better than you, then you’ve already lost.

There is little protection in just a concept, so unless you’ve got a secret recipe behind it, signing a NDA doesn’t do you much good anyway.

You should be able to openly share the concept idea with anyone, since as soon as you launch everyone will have a taste of it anyhow. If there is a secret recipe behind the concept, then by all means don’t share that until you’ve gotten to know the investor better.

Very few ideas have a secret recipe, however, and you’re more likely to be explaining why you can defend this concept once it’s launched.

What To Really Worry About

All of that said, there are some things you should consider protecting as you shop your idea around to investors.

Investors who have investments in similar companies to yours could present a challenge. You are essentially providing them with competitive information that they are free to share with their other portfolio companies. Most investors will decline meeting based on those grounds in the first place.

The other thing to worry about is the dissemination of your information. Pitch Decks and Business Plans can get shared incredibly easily. It’s helpful to have a method to grant and revoke access online if possible, or to only present the key documents in person on your own laptop.

If you’re going to worry about anything, worry about actually getting a meeting with an investor. You’re going to have plenty of challenges in attracting investors, don’t make forcing them down the NDA path one more reason to not get a pitch to begin with.

If you have some specific questions about using an NDA with investors, tweet at @Fundable and we’ll try to answer them.

LESSON OF THE DAY

1.  No One Wants Your Idea

2.  Don’t Make Life Harder

3. You Can’t Enforce It

4. Share The Cookie, Not The 

5. What To Really Worry About 

Have a wonderful and insightful weekend !!!

www.naijabakers.blogspot.com

 

Lab meat or in-vitro meat

Industry Opinion

Will consumers ever be open to eating meat that was created in a lab?

Yes(35% )

No(65% )

Share your thoughts

Naija Bakers: Food additives - a boom or a doom

Naija Bakers: Food additives - a boom or a doom: Woolworths Announces Removal of Artificial Additives From In-Store Baked Bread Date: 28 September 2012 Type: Nutrition & ...

Food additives - a boom or a doom

Woolworths Announces Removal of Artificial Additives From In-Store Baked Bread

Date:28 September 2012

Type:Nutrition & Health News

Source:Food Ingredients First

Sector:Bakery

“There are few things better in life than freshly baked bread and at Woolworths, we’ve made our fresh bread even better. Our customers have provided very clear feedback that they are concerned about additives in their food, so we have made our in-store baked bread free from these artificial additives,” said Alex Holt, Woolworths’ Head of Bakery.

- Woolworths removed 265 tonnes of salt from in-store bakery bread in 2011

- In 2012, Woolworths rolled out front-of-pack nutritional labelling across 100% of its own brand products that carry a nutrition information panel

- Woolworths voluntarily provides a full fat breakdown on nutrition information panels to include trans, polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats, in addition to the total and saturated fats listings, which are compulsory labelling requirements.

- Woolworths is an active member of the Food & Health Dialogue, a joint government / industry / public health initiative, and continues to reformulate products targeting nutrients such as sodium and saturated fat.

95 per cent of Woolworths’ fresh baked products, or 9.6 million fresh baked products per month, will now be free from artificial colours, flavours, emulsifiers or preservatives. 

My View: 

If every other bakeries adopt this policy, what would be the fate of the food ingredients and additives manufacturers.

I am not saying that consumers shouldn't eat healthy food and stay safe, but the truth is that not all food additives poses health hazard as long as they are not abused by the end users. The beauty of craft in-store bakery is the use of artificial additives to enhance the presentation of craft baked products to attract consumers.

Considering the $32 million investment of Palsgaard in Malaysia recently to produce 20,000 metric tonnes of artificial emulsifiers and stabilizers annually. 

Where do you think the food ingredient business is heading to - a boom or a doom ? 

Please let's trash this out with creative and reasonable discussion.

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The Bakery Manager, Mr. Adekunle Adeoluwa is a business strategist who believes in quality and customer satisfaction. He's a man of immense managerial skills and interpersonal relationship

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Happy customer satifaction experience !!!

6 Ways to Put the ‘Good’ in Goodbye

August 24, 2013

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On Wednesday night, I came across this article and I felt it's worth sharing on my blog...This happened in a Apple store in US,  Employees from every department excused themselves from various conversations with customers and formed a human corridor down the middle of the store. Then they started cheering.

It wasn’t to launch a new product. No, it was to say goodbye to an employee who was leaving for another job — outside the company.

Anthony walked the gauntlet of cheers and backslaps with a wide grin. Wow, I thought,that’s how you say goodbye. He was honored in a public way, and unabashedly in front of customers. This Apple store did it right. So often, goodbyes are done badly.

Friends on Wall Street have told me horror stories of their calls to Human Resources. After being “made available to the market” (a real comment from one HR person) they were then escorted out of the building by a guard with a Glock on his belt. Nice.                                          

In offering advice to managers, I want to focus today on the quitting employee—someone who is moving on to a new opportunity. Often these people are treated indifferently or even callously. Perhaps they get a few minutes in a conference room with their team and then are shuttled off to HR to figure out their COBRA health plan. Or maybe they are asked to clean out their desks after-hours, alone, so as to not disturb the workflow. They end up leaving in the dark with a few cardboard boxes of personal items.

A sad and lonely way to end your time with a company that proclaims, “People are our most important asset.” Yeah, right. You think those employees are ever coming back? You think they are recommending your company to their friends?

The way you say goodbye says a lot about you, your values, and your culture. A dignified 

separation allows both parties to leave with good feelings. It’s advertising you can’t buy. The norm is a missed opportunity, worse is a damaged relationship—not only to those who leave, but to those who stay behind who see how you treat those who want a new challenge.

It doesn’t take too much to make a potentially bad situation into something positive. Here are some simple tips for the bosses of departing employees:

• This isn’t about you. Actually, sometimes it is about you. Maybe the departing employee hates you. Get over it, because even then you can’t make this about you. It’s about the person who’s leaving and, even more importantly, those who stay behind. How you say goodbye says a lot to his friends and co-workers. So stiff upper lip, smile, and take the high road.

• Let them go graciously. If a valuable employee wants to quit it’s certainly worthwhile it to put up a fight. Start with, “Is there something I can do to change your mind?” No counter offer at all sends a message about their value to you and the organization. But recognize that, in most cases, by the time most employees come to see you they have one foot out the door and offering more money probably won’t help. You can usually tell their true intent in that first conversation—is it to get a little more compensation or really leave.

• Time things right. Two weeks is all the transition time you are going to get, or should expect to get. Unless the employee is your CEO, any more is overkill. Seriously, make them stay a month and they won’t do much of anything the last few weeks anyway.

• Say thanks. Let them know their service has been valued.

• Have a party. Yes, you have to actually stop work at some point to acknowledge their departure. Take them and the team to lunch—and pick up the tab—or have a get together near the end of their last day.

• Ask for advice. With a pad of paper in front of you, ask what you can do better as a leader, how the team could run better. They may not be completely honest with you at first, but if you stay open and receptive and start taking notes, chances are they’ll start sharing some valuable tidbits.

List of Bread Brands to watch out for : ButterBurst, Fantazia, Topcrust, Valu, Rehoboth, Remsil, Naturesworth, Magrellos, Tetrazzini, Nourish, ...............