You've just come up with the next big thing. Your business idea will change the world and bring you riches beyond your wildest dreams. Or maybe it will help make the lives of your customers a bit easier and bring you a reasonable income in return. Either way, your idea is valuable, and you need to protect it. One problem: you're not a software developer, and your plan won't work without software. You'll need to hire someone to create your ideas in the digital world. But how can you be sure the developer you hire won't just steal your idea, build your business, and take all of your rewards?
There's one fundamental fault with this apparent conundrum: it assumes ideas on their own have value. If you think your idea does, can you find someone who would buy it? I'm not talking about buying your product or service; I'm talking about buying your idea itself. You'll probably have a hard time finding a taker. Ideas, as they say, are a dime a dozen. The value in an idea is the business that you build around it. And, as anyone who has ever started a successful company will tell you, building a business is 99.9% execution and 0.1% idea.
This question of finding a developer who won't steal your idea is a question without a real problem. Software developers usually have their own companies they're busy running or are content working for an already established company. Even more, to be successful, you need to bring more to the table than just an idea. You should be uniquely positioned to start and run the company of your dreams. You should have the required background, or the industry contacts, or the trust and relationships with early customers.
In other words, you need some sort of unfair advantage that will help you win. An idea on its own will never do that. If your business idea can be so readily stolen and replicated, it probably never would have worked in the first place. A competitor would be able to swoop in and take your customers much more effectively than your developer would. It's the same reason would-be entrepreneurs every day get laughed out of the room when they want potential investors to sign non-disclosure agreements before they'll pitch their business idea. Most established investors refuse to sign NDAs because they know they're a waste of time and the sign of a potentially weak business.
So, don't worry about your developer stealing your idea. I guarantee he or she has no interest in taking your business from you. Instead, focus on finding a developer who can give you the best technical advice and build a beautiful, reliable end product that does your idea justice. Then focus on the hard stuff: everything that happens after the idea.