“Do not hesitate to share your business ideas with others for fear they might steal them. Nobody can steal the ‘fire in your belly,’ and at the end that is all that counts and differentiates you”.

So if you come up with a startup/business idea, do share it with your others for feedback, because your initial idea would need refinement and honest feedbacks.

If you are still skeptical in sharing, you can share the gist of your idea (ingredients, instead of whole recipe), however you should talk to the below people before initiating the execution.

• Talk to your prospective customers/stakeholders for the validation of the idea
• Talk to a community of people working on similar ideas/business models to understand their journey. You can easily find them online.
• Talk to your mentor (you should ideally have one) to gain constructive feedback
• Finally, talk to your future team. By your future team I mean, people in different spheres (technology, finance, marketing, etc.) who you would want to hire someday for executing your idea. See if the idea excites them and what are their inputs.

Furthermore, since this is your idea, only a few people will be as excited as you are, and some people may discourage you as well. Don’t be disheartened. Remember, it is your idea and therefore your decision. However, openly talking to these people will give you great perspective.

Cheers,

Piyush Singh