My first startup was in Arts space. I used to do Art exhibitions along staircases, where people in companies would walk up the stairs and see photo-journalism stories (instead of taking lifts). I did a few good exhibitions and later closed the startup because of financial reasons.<p>I was a bit scared that someone established in Arts industry, would take up my idea and because they had more networks and artists, would do a better than me locally and then more people would steal it in different cities.<p>I tried to go open source later and literally tried that an art gallery or a photographer steals my idea and does staircase exhibitions. I tried to pitch it to people from different countries, they all loved it, said would try it, but never did. I sent them elaborate checklists on how to execute and pitch these exhibitions.<p>Nobody steals your idea - unless they see that you are making money doing it already. At which point, your idea is no longer a secret.<p>Since then, I have shared my ideas for months before working on them and received valuable feedback to refine them or weed bad ones out. I have even shared ideas that I thought were patentable - that made me uncomfortable, but no one ever stole them either.<p>Interestingly, at times I have thought of stealing someone ideas (we were co-founding and I felt cheated). I tried, but could not steal the idea either - though I was the developer. I guess, it is a lot of work to steal an idea.<p>And my latest startup idea is a game - <a href="https://halfchess.com" rel="nofollow">https://halfchess.com</a> . I shared it for a few months before starting to build it.<p>It can still make me uncomfortable to share an idea at times. So I stopped sharing ideas with people who make me feel uncomfortable or don't have a constructive feedback.