A Confidential Statistic - Strictly Private

I went back and checked the last 100 unsolicited plans/opportunities that I received in the last little while to see if a certain point needed to be made.

Of the last unsolicited plans that arrived into my world, 71 of them had "Private", "Confidential", "Strictly Private", or "Strictly Private and Confidential" plastered on them.

19 had copy numbering, i.e. copy 16 of 20. Electronic WORD documents with copy numbering.

13 (that lucky number, I guess) had an NDA with the proposal.

5 had the NDA/Confidentially agreed as the first page of the unsolicited document.

Hmmm..

Some guidelines for you.

• Sending something unsolicited with the words private, super secret or double super secret affords you ZERO protection. Don't do this.  A summary of whatever you do/offer should be something you tell anyone in your elevator pitch or on stage if you were invited to speak about your new gig.
• Consider sending things out in PDF form. There is no device, operating system, etc, that can't read a PDF file. Plus if you lock it, you have a read only document that can't really be changed.
• Unsolicited = Sharing.  If it is interesting, it will result in sharing around the office, passing to an advisor for an opinion, etc.  See item 1.  I am a newbie VC trying to get the big shot VCs to return my phone calls so I feel your pain and I will read your stuff, answer your email, and return your phone calls. But unsolicited is not a good place for you to bring forth the secret sauce.
• Many (aka lots) of VCs, angels, etc, will immediate delete, unread, unsolicited stuff.  In addition unsolicited stuff with confidential markings is treated just about like radioactive waste.

Hopefully, you are sensing a pattern here.

Comments

[Anon]

Even a "read-only" PDF can be changed/printed etc. Once it's electronic, it's out there.

[MRM]

I am enjoying this theme, and couldn't agree more. We should do a joint blog on the times when people ask for a meeting but won't even tell you what its about without an NDA in place. Rrrriiiiggghhhhtttt.

MRM

[ZF]

I think people who do this want to find some way to express to their expectation of privacy, and just can't find the right way. Tags like 'Confidential' are basically intended to make you or anyone in your office think twice before distributing the document, rather than an attempt to tie you down legally.

I agree that a password-protected PDF is the most low-key and effective solution to this problem.

[Ben Casnocha]

Hey Rick -- Out of curiosity, how do you organize the plans you receive and file away? Do you keep track of those plans, and if so, how do you file them (electronically) so that you could, as you did for this blog post, quickly reference their content?

[Rick Segal]

Ben,
I have all of them stored in files on our exchange server. For the stats, I have an excel spreadsheet with checkmarks (Y/N) for things that matter to me.

NDA (Y/N), CFDN (Y/N), PVT (Y/N), UNSOL (Y/N), NHNF (Y/N), AMT ($$$), Angel in? (Y/N), BPNB (Y/N). It helps me to fast sorts, checks for trends, etc.

BPNB = Back Pocket National Bank
CFND = Confidential
NHNF = No Harm No Foul mtg
etc..

[Matt]

No court has ever enforced a shrink-wrap NDA or similar agreement, so it's not like such things would be binding on you. But they certainly reflect a poor understanding of the world on the part of any entrepreneur who sends them.