{"id":2940,"date":"2012-05-01T12:35:09","date_gmt":"2012-05-01T10:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/?p=2940"},"modified":"2019-05-17T18:50:40","modified_gmt":"2019-05-17T16:50:40","slug":"nda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/2012\/05\/nda\/","title":{"rendered":"Rude VC: Rude on NDAs"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Several times per week I’m requested to sign an NDA. Last I recall this practice was declining in the U.S. VC landscape, but it’s unfortunately alive and well in Europe.<\/p>\n

I say unfortunately, because excluding a few valid exceptions, an NDA strikes me as a productivity-killer that hurts both me and the entrepreneur.<\/p>\n

The process typically flows like this:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. An entrepreneur or intermediary sends me a teaser with an NDA attached.<\/li>\n
  2. If the teaser provides sufficient information, great. But often it does not. So before I can determine whether the venture fits our investment scope, I need to download and review a legal document.<\/li>\n
  3. Now reviewing legal documents is a frequent requirement of my job, but I would rather spend that time reviewing any of the number of contracts we would execute at the time of an investment. So I will rarely review an NDA. It is simply not an effective use of my time and unfair to my portfolio companies.<\/li>\n
  4. Instead, I will email back suggesting we forego the NDA until absolutely necessary for efficiency sake. Most entrepreneurs and intermediaries are smart enough to agree with this approach.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Still, we’ve wasted valuable time, probably a couple days. Not only that, but often I will let incomplete teasers with NDAs slide to the corner of my Inbox where the dust collects. So a couple days might well become a week or more. Multiply this effect across multiple potential investors, and weeks or even months are lost.<\/p>\n

    For an entrepreneur whose core activity is building a business, not fundraising, this precious time may well mean the difference between success and failure.<\/p>\n

    Even more disconcerting than the productivity factor, however, is how a mindset of clinging to secrecy will hinder the entrepreneur’s ability to build a successful business.<\/p>\n

    If I could systematically reject signing any NDAs, I would do so. But hey we’re in France, a country that is a big fan of paperwork. If you insist on obtaining a signed NDA before we can have an exchange about your business venture, then I invite you to request my standard template.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Several times per week I’m requested to sign an NDA. Last I recall this practice was declining in the U.S. VC landscape, but it’s unfortunately alive and well in Europe. I say unfortunately, because excluding a few valid exceptions, an NDA strikes me as a productivity-killer that hurts both me and the entrepreneur. The process<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":77,"featured_media":64802,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[113],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-finance"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/77"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2940\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}