The Briefing Room

New business owners looking to replace their previous “corporate” income, or those who want their business stick around for the foreseeable future: listen up.

You originally picked up a calligraphy pen for a creative outlet and never put it down. Friends and family start noticing, and inquiries are starting to trickle in. You realize you really can do this: pursue your creative passion and maybe start a little business in the process. You’ve caught the entrepreneur bug, and you can’t wait to get started.

For today’s topic, I wanted to discuss an issue that came up when I was talking to a couple of creatives at our last Rising Tide Society meeting. An issue had arisen recently when a client had wanted them to sign an NDA, or a nondisclosure agreement, and they were not sure if they should sign it or not.

You’re head down, hard at work, creating. You’ve been working hard lately- after all of those late nights and hard work, you’ve finally launched that program that you’ve been working on for so long. Now, you’re busy wrapping up all of those loose ends and are starting to dive into your next phase of your project when suddenly…your phone dings.

When I was in college, I ran track with a guy who later became an engineer. Anytime we would walk into a new building or stadium, while we’d all be surveying the track, his eyes would quickly go up- silently assessing the structure of the building, and the layout of each beam and pipe.