But on this point the investor’s interests are not the same as the innovator’s. The innovator has one set of important information he or she wants to keep confidential. The shopping investor will not experience the same sense of propriety. So before you buy into the mindset that NDAs are always bad for the startup ecosystem, consider the following five reasons you may want to use an NDA in certain discussions: You do not need to ask everyone you talk to about your projects to sign an NDA. That actually would stifle innovation and would keep legitimate opportunities from finding you. But if you keep these reasons in mind, you may find that your situation actually does need an NDA. Photo credit: Flickr user hapticflapjack under this Creative Commons license. Guest author Evan Brown is senior counsel with InfoLawGroup LLP in Chicago, helping businesses make good decisions about technology and intellectual property. He also writes the internetcases blog. Follow him on Twitter @internetcases.
