What Every Entrepreneur Should Know About NDAs

Warning:  This post contains self-promotional material

When I'm not doing marketing consulting, I'm co-founder of a company that provides integrated general & administrative services for early stage startups and other small businesses.  Many of our clients are technology based and one area where we get a lot of questions centers around non-disclosure agreements ("NDAs").  How effective are they?  When should I use them?  What are the pitfalls?

Recently, my co-founder at Infrastructure Group, John Horn, who also has a law practice serving Infrastructure Group clients and other technology companies, started his own blog, Law for Entrepreneurs as a service to our clients and others who may be interested in the legal issues faced by startups.  His advice comes from years of practice as a corporate general counsel (i.e. an operating guy) vs. from years of practice at a big law firm (i.e. the billable hours folks...tick, tick, tick....)

John has just completed a three part "tutorial" on NDAs that I highly recommend:

What an NDA Is (and is Not) Good For

Consider the Context Before Asking for an NDA

When Someone Asks You to Sign Their NDA

(Incidentally, having dealt with many, many NDAs over the years, given the similarity in provisions, I'm convinced that they are all spawned from one template that's been circulating around Silicon Valley since the 1960s.  Something to think about the next time your attorney offers to review an NDA for you for $400!)

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