The other night I sent a list of ideas I’ve been having to the head of a tech accelerator that I hoped could help make one or more a reality. My original goal was to get the portfolio of ideas complete, and email sent the day after thanksgiving hoping to catch him when he had less email traffic, but for some reason I delayed.
I delayed until Saturday, and then until Sunday, and finally decided to put my finishing touches on the document Sunday night and send it then. This would allow for my email to be first in his inbox to see in the morning. After getting it done, I didn’t get my normal sense of accomplishment, and didn’t sleep very well that night. In the morning I had a response like I wanted, but wasn’t exactly what I was looking for.
Last night I spend 7 hours with my good friend and lawyer discussing my trademark, and putting together additional documentation. My lawyer is a bright guy. He explained to me how law is like a chess match and we strategized and played out several different scenarios. This was fun, stimulating, and I know I am learning a lot.
Briefly we talked about some of my ideas, that I had emailed the night before and he thought they were great. We got off track a bit as we discussed how to capitalize, and what the team would look like. After getting such a poor response from the email the prior night, it felt good to have some reassurance my ideas were good ones.
After reflecting on the whole situation I think I’ve figured out a lesson. I need to trust my gut more often. Generally, I feel like I can trust my gut and I think my gut was telling me to delay sending my ideas in an email to someone I didn’t even know. At the time I thought the feeling in my gut was myself being lazy and just pushing off work. I think this is a fine line I will need to learn to walk, but will be an important thought to keep in mind going forward.
Now someone I don’t know, who doesn’t want my help, has my ideas and the ability to make them happen. I hope they don’t get “stolen.” It’s hard to get ideas turned into a reality without sharing them, and I’ve tried to not share my ideas, but the response is never good. You could try sending non competes, but people will rarely sign them, so I decided to just give it a shot.
My buddy Rafael and I did this a few weeks ago on KickStarter.com with our iVault. I’ll say we had moderate success, several positive reviews, over 100+ facebook likes, but we were unable to raise the capital to complete the project. The funny thing is now there are 2 other projects (first, second) just like ours on the site. I guess copying is the best form of flattery, but i still want some credit.
