Thursday, July 19, 2007

NDAs - To sign or not to sign

As a VC, I am often asked by entrepreneurs to sign an NDA before they send me their business plans. I think entrepreneurs should understand that this is an unreasonable request. We see dozens of opportunities each week, and there's no way we could sign an NDA before looking at each one.

The reality is that confidentiality is guaranteed by all of the VCs I know (and certainly by me). There's no motivation for a VC to steal an idea or use the information contained in a business plan inappropriately. Reputation is everything in our business. We rely on it to source deals and to build relationships with entrepreneurs. VCs, more so than almost any other professionals, are men of their word.

So, send those business plans with confidence, and don't worry about NDAs. Ideas sent to dawalibi@garagecanada.com remain 100% confidential.

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3 comments:

kevin jones said...

I agree.

Paul Dawalibi said...

I've actually heard that the no-NDA policy is a very North American phenomenon for VCs. It would be interesting to see the rationale used by VCs who do sign them (if you can find any).

Aaron Fyke said...

We follow the same policy in Australia, for the same reasons. Administering NDAs for all of the business plans we receive is unworkable.