NDA For market research ?

[Bluedot]

I've finally come up with what I think is a half decent idea for a business, it ticks a lot of boxes for me and looks like it might be worth pursuing.
I need to do some market research to see if the companies I'm aiming it at would think it is viable.
The business is targeted at job agencies so I plan on contacting a number of them to try and garner their opinion, my question is should I be worried about any of them reading my business summary and hijacking it for themselves ? in which case, should I worry about an NDA ?
My initial thoughts are that the NDA would probably put some of them off answering and that unless I had something written up professionally (as opposed to a generic online template) then it wouldn't really be worth the paper it's written on anyway ?

[StevieBee]

NDA's are worth little more than diddly squat. With or without them, if someone if of a mind to copy you're idea, they will.

You can't not tell anything to anybody all the time.

Rather than convey your business idea, approach them with solutions to the problem that your business idea will provide and seek to assess the market's level of willingness to buy that solution and for what price.

[Vaud]

StevieBee said:

NDA's are worth little more than diddly squat.

NDAs or mutual NDAs are regularly enforced and often at high cost to the party that breaches, especially where trade secrets are involved.

Question is often more - can you afford to enforce?

[patently]

An NDA is useful when you're going to be able to tell that it has been breached. An example would be where the confidential idea is a way to improve the product that they're selling.

It's largely useless where the confidential idea is something internal to the company - an office process, say, or a better manufacturing process that leaves no discernible "fingerprint" on the final product. It's just as enforceable in theory, but in practice you can't prove it has been breached.

The real problem is getting people to agree to one if you're a cold caller. If they have any sense then they'll refuse, as if they're already thinking along those lines then signing your NDA will leave them with a choice between abandoning their line of thought or bringing a whole load of grief on themselves. You need to think about whether there is a more limited disclosure you can make to them before asking for an NDA, to get them interested and let them know it's not something they're working on themselves, without giving the whole lot away.

[Bluedot]

Thanks for the responses, I'm certainly not in any position to enforce an NDA if in the unlikely scenario someone was to hijack the idea so I'll just press ahead with the business plan and carry out some market research.

[Frimley111R]

Unless it's some type of 'game changer' the reality is that the companies are busy enough with their own work without worrying about you idea and if it will even work. If you do it everyone will know what it is anyway. Worth Googling it too as its hard to come up with something no-one has thought of yet.

[jonamv8]

Bluedot said:

Thanks for the responses, I'm certainly not in any position to enforce an NDA if in the unlikely scenario someone was to hijack the idea so I'll just press ahead with the business plan and carry out some market research.

Fair play that's the right thing to do. Just crack on and don't worry unless you've cured cancer