What do you do if you got an idea but can't talk to anybody about it?

[Credos]

Ok guys, I'm going to be plain about is, I've got an idea about how to recuperate more oil in the gulf of Mexico, but I need to discuss this with some technical people to make sure I didn't miscalculate stuff...

This brings me to the problem that they can steal my ideas... I have many of these ideas but I feel like I can't trust anybody with them...

What do you do in such a situation...

The reason I posted that stuff about global warming is because I might have an idea on how to solve it and even use it to profitable means, but again I need to be able to go to somebody technical that wouldn't steal my ideas...

What should I do...? (I don't have family members who are technicly strong)

Ps: College is starting to feel like a waste of time... If only I had the money to support my research I could put my time to so much better use... Classes don't intrest me, like eaglecreek I'm just focusing on reading books that support my ideas and give me deeper insight on the problems that are within my ideas...

 

[lorekeeper]

Best you can probably do is get them to sign a NDA. it's kinda hard to inforce though.

 

[Tesl]

Ah, this is easy.

1) Your idea probably isn't revolutionary, and there are probably things involved that you haven't considered. There are a lot of very smart people working in this industry.

2) Even if your idea IS revolutionary, you have to realise that the value in any venture is not the "idea", but the implementation. That is, everyone can have a million great ideas, but they have no value whatsoever until someone actually puts it into practice. The person that actually uses the idea is the one that creates value and the one that will profit.

Put less value on the idea itself and more on the process of putting it into reality. For this, you are going to have to speak to people more experienced and smarter than yourself to validate that it works. If its something affordable, then go do it. If not, then go try and raise venture capital with a realistic business plan (you are going to have to also tell people here, perhaps under an NDA, what you will be doing). If whatever your idea is is too expensive to implement for anyone except the biggest oil companies, then your head is probably just in the clouds anyway.

I suppose what I'm saying is, forget about the risk of people stealing your idea and just go do what it takes to verify its possible and then go make it happen. Most people are not in the business of stealing ideas from other people. The risk of someone stealing your idea is nothing compared to the risk of inaction because you think someone might steal it.