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Ask HN: How do you trust a developer to develop a lucrative idea?

3 points by newyearnewyou ↗ HN
I am not a developer, and I have an idea (for the purposes of this discussion, let's assume it is in fact, very promising if executed properly). How exactly can I trust someone I hire not to steal it? I was thinking of using https://gigster.com, and they've assured me that all their developers are top-notch and bound by NDA. I'm just worried one of them might see how awesome the idea is, and still try to do it on their own.

6 comments

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WalterSear
1. Fall out of love with your idea. Recognize that execution is vastly more important, and that even a killer idea in a killer app will die on the vine if it is not supported, marketed and managed appropriately. What you bring to the table >other< than your idea is invariably more important to its success.

or

2. Bring on a technical cofounder, and explicitly divide your company between you.

or

3. Learn to code.

sbierwagen
Generally, ideas are either good, xor unique. If it's a good idea, someone's already done it. If it's unique, it's probably bad.

Companies are 10% idea and 90% execution. You could probably post the idea here and nobody would steal it, just because it's so much work to develop a company, and if it got big you would Winklevoss them.

grizzles
This is pretty common misconception among first time entrepreneurs.

If you need one, I could name a half a dozen great ideas off the top of my head. I think most entrepreneurs could. The bottom line is, if you want to build a business, you are going to have to trust somebody sometime.

alistproducer2
I don't mean this to belittle you but good ideas are a dime-a-dozen. As a person who both has good ideas and knows how to code I can tell you, form experience, executing a good idea is extremely hard. I'm not just talking about the code. The code is the second easiest part. The one where almost everyone trips up is business development and marketing.

Finding a coder who can solve the bizdev rubicks cube is as rare as a bizdev guy who can build an MVP on his/her own.

TL;DR no freelance coder is going to be able to execute both the code and the business plan, so don't worry. If they were that good, they'd already be rich and wouldn't be soliciting freelance gigs.

PhilWright
Tell us your idea and we can comment on if it is worth copying?