In my freelance days, I would decline discussions when asked to sign an NDA upfront. Now, as a startup founder, I recently spoke with a company in a similar domain for 40 minutes. They expressed a desire to help, and told me they have abundant resources, but I have to sign an NDA to continue the conversation. My instinct is to continue independently rather than entangle myself in legalities without a clear understanding of their assistance. They seem impressed with my work, but I’m unsure of the mutual benefit. I’ve sent them a follow up email and detailed my challenges, requesting specifics on how they might assist, but doubt they will reply. My reservation about NDAs comes from my lack of a robust legal team. If there’s a breach, I can’t contest it as effectively as they might. Given our industry overlap, the risk of inadvertent NDA breaches is high for me. Am I overthinking this? Is it customary for collaborators to request NDAs without a formal employment structure or potential investment?
NDAs are only worth as much as the legal team enforcing it. And being morally in the clear means absolutely nothing if you can’t defend against the attacking team.
That said, it also depends on the NDA.
Practically it could mean that an expert working for a clueless/evil client never again can use their domain knowledge with another client, or it could simply be a case of “don’t talk about our projects within 6 months of learning about them”.
But red flags are red flags. Don’t consider compromising with people not willing to compromise with you, unless you’re financially forced to do so. Life sucks, and sometimes we have to gamble on other people not being as bad as they might be.