Protecting business ideas by covering them with a cloak of secrecy is very common, big companies like Apple are extremely secretive about new products or even updates on existing products. It works for Apple because it does not need anyone’s advice to make the right decisions. However, for most small to mid-sized business and startups secrecy can lead to failure. As an entrepreneur with a great new idea, you are so taken over by it, that you may not see the whole picture, or be able to account for all the significant factors that could affect your idea. When you share your idea with diverse people it’s likely that you will end up with at least a few pieces of valuable advice that have the power to make or break your start-up. You should not worry about your idea being stolen, because most serious entrepreneurs already have a lot of ideas hovering in their heads and if your idea got stolen by big companies, you could very easily beat it to execution because the larger they are, the longer they will take to transform any idea into reality.

Source: NY Times