Why No One Will Steal Your Startup Idea
Former Director of People @ Buffer
When you’ve got a great idea, share it.
It might seem like counterintuitive advice, but that’s the philosophy that’s building Buffer: An emphasis on transparency and openness around almost everything we do.
So it’s no surprise that Buffer founders Joel and Leo focus on openness even when it comes to new and untested startup ideas.
Instead of the (quite natural) thought process of keeping a startup idea to yourself out of fear someone will nab it, they say the sooner you shout your idea from the rooftops, the more successful you’re likely to be.
It may feel uncomfortable, but often that’s a sign you’re on the right track. After all, how else are you going to figure out if your idea is what people want?
In this Founder Chat video, Joel and Leo explain the reasons why sharing early in the process was the right move for Buffer. Could it work for your idea?
What do you think? We’d love to hear your take on this topic in the comments.
P.S. If you liked this post, you might enjoy our Buffer: Open Blog newsletter. Receive each new lifehacking, productivity and business leadership post delivered right to your inbox! Sign up here.
Try Buffer for free
140,000+ small businesses like yours use Buffer to build their brand on social media every month
Get started nowRelated Articles
Nine years ago, we decided to launch a new free product alongside Buffer. We called it Pablo, and it was a huge hit in our community. Within just seven months of its launch, half a million photos were created using Pablo. Similarly, we had the initial ideas for Stories Creator and Remix many years ago now. All three of these tools have been an important part of Buffer’s story. They’ve taught us lessons and helped us connect with a wider audience. In Pablo’s case, the idea for this tool happene
If you use Buffer, you might have experienced us having more downtime than usual recently. We want to start with an apology for not sharing more transparently along the way what’s been happening. We’ve been caught up in the work and haven’t invested enough in communicating with our community, and we’re so sorry about this misstep. We know some of our customers have had a frustrating time using Buffer recently and we need to do better by you. This past August and September were the months we’ve
As part of our commitment to transparency and building in public, Buffer engineer Joe Birch shares how we’re doing this for our own GraphQL API via the use of GitHub Actions.
