On the note of confidentiality agreements or NDAs. Honestly, as a company that does a majority of its work in R&D, we are exposed to so many ideas each day that it would be impossible to sign and honor most NDAs. Unless there is a major contract in the order of hundreds of thousands of dollars involved, it’s our policy to not enter into legal non disclosures.

In regards to non-disclosure agreements, I’d tend to agree that they aren’t that important, unless for some reason you suspect that the person you’re talking to would intentionally try to “steal” the idea and run with it on his own.

But then, never having had to deal with them, my opinion is a bit speculative.

Second, you asked me a while ago about how the Open Source thing works. While this is a bit OT, one thing that publishing our software as Open Source does for us is eliminate the whole NDA experience. Truth be told, we do still use NDA clauses in our contracts to protect our and our clients’ IP. Still, one thing fewer to worry about.

I totally agree that execution is the most important one, followed by (Guy Kawasaki will hate me for this) first mover advantage. But the latter is overrated too. Digg wasn’t the first yet they beat the competition (although things may be changing for them).

Filing patents (in Europe anyway) is often also not very beneficial, taking your innovation in a practical form to the market is. Being there as the first or the best counts more is my belief.

So I would say, go for the wisdom and advice, as they will make you even better. And trust your gut-feeling when it comes to people. Not talking to people you don’t trust completely is way better than having the NDA anyway.