[Jeffery]

Ever had an idea, never seen it done in all the years of IMing, and you know based on your experience that it will make money?

Well, I believe I have a real winner. Problem is that in the past I would share those ideas with people in my own forum. We would go so far as to start projects. Next thing we know someone shared it with others and before we knew it the cat was out of the bag. Other people beat us to the punch and were first to the market. Later, we made public a superior product/service, but not being first to the market kinda hurt.

What would you do? I ask because I wanted to post this in the ideas section of the forum. I also ask because I trust in Mary's advise. For a fact, I know she has been there herself. Since a lot of folks here are like minded it makes sense to ask?

Jeffery 100% :-)

[Admin]

Hi Jeffery,

Yeah, I've had ideas like that many times, and understand what you are saying about posting them for public view in a froum. If this one was a paid forum/membership it might make a difference, or even if we had a specific section that is not indexed, and is by invitation only.

I can set up a private section here for something like that if you want. Then we can invite the people we trust in. You guys let me know if that's what you want to do though. If I get a couple of you who want to do things that way, I'll go ahead and set it up.

But to answer your main question about what I would do in this case is quite simple for me anymore. For one thing, I'd only contact people that I know personally and respect about my best ideas ideas. Secondly, I'd be tempted to post some ideas (the not so worried about ideas) in a piad/private forum for the good of a specific group.

Other places you can share ideas with is in conference calls or something like group chat ... i.e... Skype, MSN, etc ...

But beyond that, I don't post my ideas or systems anymore in public because I've been burnt too many times in the past.

2 of the projects I posted were for major pieces of software. In the end, I lost quite a bit of money because the programmer I hired was also programming the same software for someone else after sharing my idea with him. I didn't expect a programmer to tell someone else about ideas, and actually stall the main project for the person who came up with the idea in the first place, but push the other person's. Now that really sucked!

So to me, it's not only posting ideas in forums that bother me so much, it's rather about who can be trusted in the end or who I can trust to share my ideas with.

Btw, now that I have a good programmer that I trust with my life, I don't worry as much anymore.

Hey Jeffery, thanks for the kind words too. That was sweet of ya.


Mary

[Karsten]

I hired was also programming the same software for someone else after sharing my idea with him

sorry to hear this Mary but I guess that happens more often than one might think... almost every week there is a new "outsourcing guide" on wb and other places out but they will never tell you that you have to kiss a lot of frogs (and be prepared to loose money too) until you finally happen to kiss the prince (I would prefer to kiss a princess anyway )

[RandiVonSmack]

Keep it to yourself. Utilize it, make sure it works and collect data, then write a book about it and sell it. That's what I'D do.

[Mary Murtha]

Hey Jeffery,

You got any more comments about your post?

I'm just trying to find out if everyone wants a private area to discuss stuff like this.


Thanks ...