I hate to say it, but this is going to be a really tough sell. “Idea Guys” don’t really have much of a shot unless they have a team of lackies pre-assembled and just need money to keep the project going.
Imagine if your friend came to you and said “Hey, man, I have this really sweet idea for a car, but I have no engineering background, no reputation in the industry, and don’t know anybody who can help me make this. Spare some change?”
It’s not impossible, but without at least a few guys behind you that are willing to prototype it and commit to the project if you get funding, it’s going to be very hard to find a company who won’t just take your idea and not give you a penny.
By hook or by crook get them and do it yourself, is my advice. Once you get something up and running, and if it’s any good, people will be falling over themselves to invest or buy it from you. I really wish you good luck with it!
I have to agree. Going to work as an “employee” of some other company when all you are bringing to the table is an “idea” sounds like a horrible idea.
Typically what people with “ideas” in IT do is form their own company and then go build at least a prototype. The forming of the company is pretty easy. It’s just filling out a bunch of forms and paying a bunch of fees to register as a corporation or whatever structure you choose.
If you don’t have the technical know-how, then you need to find a partner who does, or at least find some cheap developers to build it for you. Unfortunately that takes funding. Which means you also have to be looking for ways to finance your project.
And if it’s a social media site, you really need to be coming to the table with something that already will attract users. Social media sites need to build a critical mass of users to be successful. Users aren’t attracted to a site that other users aren using. And users don’t like using a site that is half built and buggy.
This whole paragraph sums up my problem. The best way to get developers and capital is to pitch the idea to the company and see if they’ll just give me a salary and a small bite of the final pie.
The advantage for my idea is that because it’d be used for in-house collaboration, employees could essentially be ordered to use the site. So I don’t have to get people to use it. I only have to get the clients to think that their people will use it. And that’s what I bring to the table. Without me or someone like me, the development company would be left with an expensive, unsellable product.
But for now, I think I’ll just try to get as far as I can for free. The farther I get, the bigger the bite I can negotiate for.
Based on what you’ve said so far, I think this is your best bet.
I’ve been around internet startups for a while, though never the initial funding part. But even as a lowly engineer I can tell you that “some guy with an idea” is just not an approach that’s likely to get anywhere. You’re competing with an almost unlimited supply of startups who have working demos (and in some cases paying customers). I’m not passing judgement on your idea, it’s just that you have to ask yourself why a business should choose to invest in your idea, when they have any number of options that are already further developed. (And bear in mind that “It’s like facebook but for xyz” is a story that has been told before). If you’re going to approach someone and tell them it’s relatively cheap and worthwhile to build version 1.0 of something, the first thing they’ll ask is: so why haven’t you built it already? If it’s not good enough for you to take the risk, why should we?
You can get a long way for free, or nearly so. A number of open source social network platforms already exist. High performance hosting and storage is not that expensive. If you’re willing and able to make the right compromises and recognize which bits are the fundamental first steps, there are ways to build the foundations of something relatively quickly and easily, especially if you find people who are motivated and enthusiastic about the idea. If you’re not a developer or designer, then that’s your job - finding those people and figuring out how to bootstrap.
The problem is, once they have the idea - if it’s good and not patentable/copyrightable - they don’t need a guy who expects a percentage. They probably can hire “someone like you”.
That’s why you need at least a prototype or something that looks like you are almost finished so it doesn’t look like they are going to be doing most of the work themselves, istm. Maybe finding a hungry programmer would be worth the effort over the ease of just handing off to a big company.
If you want to protect your idea, write it all down as detailed as possible. Make pictures of what it will look like and describe what it will be doing.
Make multiple copies of everything. Ten copies should be a safe bet.
Mail them to yourself via certified mail so that you have a sealed, dated description of what your idea is.
Never open them unless you have to prove what your idea was, when you had it, and how specific the idea was.
I believe that previous threads have debunked the idea of mailing something to yourself as a cheap way to establish the date when you thought of something, or as a “poor man’s copyright.” The obvious flaw in the concept is that if the envelope isn’t sealed, you could have added contents later.
Yes, it’s completely worthless as a means of protecting IP.
Also, protecting IP is not really all that important to the OP’s situation. He probably doesn’t have anything that’s protectable, practically speaking. The idea is not the important thing. Being in the position to implement it is.
Everyone in the IT industry has an idea. They’re like screenplays in Hollywood, I suppose. The notion that you just have to get the right person to listen to it is fantasy.