The Age Old Entrepreneur-VC Paranoia Question

answer: not secretive at all.

Entrepreneurs only hurt themselves when they start telling VCs that they can't disclose information. What entrepreneurs should do is understand what a VC is invested in before you take the first meeting; if the investor is already invested in a competitor then you know what context potential questions are in and how to frame you answers.

Link: The Age Old Entrepreneur-VC Paranoia Question.

More evidence that startups are back in fashion: we're seeing a repeat of articles about the startup process that were published during the bubble years. It seems that every new generation of entrepreneurs has to find out how things work yet again -- so the old stories are resuscitated with new actors filling all the usual roles. The Boston Globe is running the ever-popular "how secretive should you be with your business plan in pitching VCs?" story. This article was probably written and published twenty or so times in the mid-to-late nineties. While this one includes the story of how Sidestep pitched some VCs who later went on to found competitor Kayak, the example case five years ago was UrbanFetch being created after an investor heard Kozmo's pitch and figured he could do a better job. Of course, VCs who actually do take someone else's idea are being pretty stupid -- because word gets around (such as in articles like this one, where VC firm General Catalyst is accused of poaching Sidestep's ideas) and it makes it m