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On this page, we're going to collect together some basic tools and utilities.

Non-disclosure agreement (NDA):

Whenever you reveal any of your ideas, you need to be protected against theft. In the early stages, you'll need a non-disclosure agreement. This tool helps you write a suitable agreement.

Bear in mind that an NDA doesn't give you very much protection, and it gives you hardly any redress. Therefore, you should think very carefully before asking someone to sign one. Full details are in The Next Big Thing, but a brief summary is here:

• Never show your secrets to anyone who would want them more than your business. Only ever show them to people who want your business more than your ideas. Don't show anything to prospective licensees, only to prospective consultants.
• Avoid telling anyone your whole idea.
• And, of course, if you don't feel you can trust them, you have no business showing them your secrets no matter what they sign.

If you're happy with these warnings, then you can use this tool to generate a suitable NDA for your idea.

Business planning tools:

As your idea takes shape, you'll need to plan out its commercial aspects. How much will your product cost to manufacture? Can it sustain a whole, working company? And, can you finance the company from the first idea right through to your (and your investors') exit?

We'll be gradually adding more planning tools in here. Some of them will be online tools, and others will be tools which you'll have to download. In all cases, we promise that no information you enter into these tools will be transmitted to or saved on any other machine.

The investment planner shows you how much financing you're going to need to build your company, how much equity you're going to need to give away in return, and how much you'll make at the exit. It shows you, in outline, a roadmap of your idea from the very beginning to the very end.