As if being a solopreneur isn’t hard enough – hustling for clients, constantly creating content and selling things, being the sole decision maker, and wearer of a thousand hats, you have to worry about someone you know stealing your idea. Or do you?
Early on in my solopreneurship journey, I was on either end of the spectrum when it came to sharing, brainstorming and asking for help. I would either overshare with too many people, or hold things so closely to my chest that I never sanity checked anything.
In one of my over-sharing moments, I told a trusted friend and fellow entrepreneur about a business idea that I had. It was to create a course on a very specific topic with various moving pieces and reach. I didn’t think twice about it. She was a friend of mine, a business owner herself, someone I trusted.
About two weeks later I saw that she had bootstrapped a new product launch and it was exactly the same idea I had shared with her two weeks earlier. And the kicker… she never even said anything to me about it. It was like to her, I had absolutely nothing to do with the idea or concept – she came up with it all on her own.
As outspoken as I can be, I also don’t like burning bridges so I never said anything to her about it. In fact, I helped her promote it.
