The blogosphere is ablaze with news of Mark Cuban's most recent idea.  Open source funding. Personally, I love the idea and would love to see this approach taken more often.  How much easier does it get if you're a college kid wanting to start a business.  You have to make money by selling your product or service (no ad revenue models, thank goodness), as well as fit within 12 other rules.  Easy.  Post your b-plan somewhere online, link it in the comments of Mark's post and BAM!  You might just have a very well known investor on board. Marc at the North Carolina Startup Blog has an excellent post about the Open Source Funding project also.  He also mentions Jackson Miller who offered to buy ideas for $0.02 a piece.  Why?  Because ideas aren't worth a crap.  They're cheap.  Execution is where the difficult part comes in.  This brings me to my next (related) topic... Why You Should Burn Your NDA If you're involved in a startup, or want to be, and you have a Non-Disclosure Agreement, burn it.  The only thing that an NDA does is protect your idea.  I recently got into a pretty giant argument with a close friend of mine about this very subject.  He got mad that I told someone else about his idea.  He was afraid they were going to steal it.  Who cares?  If someone else is doing the same thing you are, then find a way to do it better than them.  I promise you that as soon as you come to market, someone will likely copy your idea.  Being the first to market doesn't hold as much sway anymore, especially with the early-adopter types that frequent startups. If you go to an angel investor or a VC firm and ask them to sign an NDA, you will get laughed out of town folks.  Here's why Alexander Muse won't sign one (here's why he will, but will charge you for it), here's one post from the startup lawyer himself, Ryan Roberts, (and another), two from Guy Kawasaki (one here and one here), and one from Brad Feld. What do all of these guys have in common?  They've all been involved in startups for quite some time.  Some are serial entrepreneurs, some are angel investors, some work for VC funds, but they all know the ins and outs of how it works.  If you don't ever listen to another word I say, listen to them. Anyone need a light?