Expired? or not? Creative Commons License from Mark Turnaukas

Non-disclosure agreements are pretty simple documents really.

Two entities get together and agree not to reveal what they share between them with anyone else.  Oh, and they agree not to share this information with anyone else for a specific period of time, called the “term” of the agreement.

Common “terms” are 2, 3, and 5 years.

EasyNDA’s Non-Disclosure Agreement Term

From the date of termination of the agreement.

“What?” you say?
Doesn’t the agreement “terminate” at the end of the “term”?

Continue reading →

F. Tim Knight writes an illuminating post, “It’s the 6 D’s Not the ’60’s: Machine Processing and the legal Profession“, about machine processing of legal assistance.

His premise is based on the work of Ryan McClead who contends in his article, “The Exponential Law Firm“, that Ryan’s answer to the question, “What do lawyers sell?” has shifted from selling “access to the collective knowledge and expertise of the firm” to simply “legal processing.”

Non disclosure agreements (NDAs) more often than not fall into the category of simple “legal processing.”  Most firms assign paralegals and junior attorneys to deal with NDAs.  And why not?  NDAs are fundamentally simple agreements.  Most outside counsels will give their clients a “standard” mutual non-disclosure agreement and tell them to have at it.  The attorneys don’t want to see the docs – there’s not enough value derived from the attorneys’ review for their clients’ dollars.

And non-disclosure agreements are a just a tiny step in the business process.  Necessary?  Yes. Worth stopping the business process to await processing NDA paperwork?  Not often.  And unless you’re negotiating a complex non-disclosure agreement with unusual terms, don’t pay for mere “legal processing” by expensive and time consuming humans.  Let a machine handle the process.

Do business, not paperwork.  EasyNDA is one service that lubricates the business process of non-disclosure agreements without the costs of legal processing.  For standard non-disclosure agreements, creating, signing, and sending NDAs from any device at any time will keep your business moving. Make sure you’re focused on businesses processes not legal processes.

We’ve all been there.  You need to move fast … except you’re stuck behind the non disclosure agreement.

You’ve just gotten to the juicy part of the meeting – maybe about to exchange pricing or release dates – when the other side of the table says, “Do we have an NDA?”

Freeze frame!  This is a business inflection point.  Either you know you don’t have an NDA in place already and have two copies of a printed NDA you can both fill out on the spot… or you don’t .  In today’s paperless world, not many people carry around NDAs ready to sign…  and who in your company knows all the companies with whom you already have NDAs?

So, you’re stuck.  Business comes to a standstill while your each go off to figure out if you have an NDA in place, and if not, you have to cycle through whatever process your company uses to get a non disclosure agreement done.  Meanwhile your business suffers.

That’s why we created EasyNDA.
NDAs do not have to be complicated or take long to get in place.

With EasyNDA, you simply use any connected device: computer, tablet, or phone to create, sign, and send an NDA to the person across the table from you.  It takes less than a minute. EasyNDA stores all your company information – you just Click, Sign, and Send.

Work fast. Work smart.
Do business, not paperwork.

In a WSJ piece with Bill Gurley yesterday, Bill says,

“Every incremental day that goes past I have this feeling a little bit more. I think that Silicon Valley as a whole or that the venture-capital community or startup community is taking on an excessive amount of risk right now. Unprecedented since ‘’99. In some ways less silly than ’99 and in other ways more silly than in ’99.”

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gurley-silicon-valley-is-taking-on-too-much-risk-2014-9#ixzz3DjgtQYlb

Fred Wilson in his piece today, says:

The thing I like so much about Bill’s point of view is that he does not focus on valuations as a measure of risk. He focuses on burn rates instead.

We have multiple portfolio companies burning multiple millions of dollars a month.

I’ve been grumpy for months, possibly for longer than that, about this

At EasyNDA, we are taking a long view and working hard to balance our growth needs against unnecessary burn.  Simple things like what bank to use, which services to employ, and on which features to spend our resources.

We see startups all around us burning cash at unrecoverable rates – and expect many of these companies to run into the proverbial wall. Our goal is to stay lean while being optimally responsive to our customers’ needs. Let us know how we’re doing.

EasyNDA is ready for user testing!

NEW FEATURES:

• Start NDA creation from the home page.
• Start NDA creation before creating an account.
• More responsive design features for finger signing on mobile devices.

Give it a try!  Send a test NDA to test@easynda.com

Using the most minimal theme possible (Twenty Twelve) and applying custom css with liberal use of {display: none;}, we have a possible solution by inserting an <iframe> into easynda.com.  It even appears to be working in responsive layouts:

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