NDAs waste everyone’s time!
March 17, 2008
OMG, if someone sends me another NDA to sign I may shoot myself. This afternoon we got an unsolicited RFP (request for proposal) from a potential Architel customer and it included a unilateral NDA in the contract. I threw the RFP away (I have a long standing rule against them). Rick Segal has another post on NDAs titled, “NDAs - Repeat After Me“:
All together now:
VC firms typically do not sign NDAs for first looks/meetings.VC firms typically do not sign NDAs with promises not to evaluate the same or similar businesses included.
VC firms typically do not sign NDAs with 5 year no contact clauses included.
VC firms typically do not sign NDAs with promises to report any contact with competitive businesses included.
So far this year (and we’re only half way through March), I’ve had requests for 35 NDAs, many including the weird clauses above.
And the best for last. Repeat this 10 times before you go to bed tonight:
I will not send an unsolicited beautiful leather bound binder with 600 hundred pages of detailed business, marketing, competitive, and financial information about my business along with an unsigned NDA and a request for it to be signed and returned to any VC. It arrived in my office on Thursday and the binder was off the charts nice.
