Use case

Business plans

Timestamp before you share. A business plan circulates among investors, partners, and potential competitors. Sometimes they are the same people.

The situation

One scenario, two outcomes

The same moment, depending on whether the work was timestamped or not.

The trigger

You send your plan to eighteen funds in three weeks. Two ask for an NDA, and the other sixteen do not. That is standard practice at the seed stage.

Without proof

Eight months later, one of them funds a company with a strikingly similar positioning, down to the pricing model. The date and content of the plan become hard to establish. The conversation ends there.

With a certificate

The plan and its successive versions were timestamped before the first email. You can produce the date, the exact content, and prior existence ahead of the exchange. The certificate gives you a basis for negotiation, whose outcome depends on the case.

Is your situation different?

The need

Wide distribution, prior existence of the concept, discussions that fail.

The company's most widely shared document

A plan goes out to dozens of people, often without an NDA at the early stage. Timestamping it before the first email fixes the content and the date: what you had written, and when you had written it.

When the discussion goes nowhere

A fund passes, then funds a competitor with a similar positioning. A dated record from before the first exchange gives you a basis to continue the discussion.

Every version counts

The plan evolves from a statement of intent to the Series A. Timestamping each iteration preserves the trajectory of your thinking, often more convincing than the final document alone.

→Deposit in a few seconds, before the first email
→Successive versions kept and dated
→File transferred securely for timestamping, never viewed by our team unless you expressly ask (optional extended storage for subscribers)
→Certificate attachable to the shared document

For an answer tailored to your case, talk to an expert: this page describes a typical situation, yours has its own specifics.

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See also

Two related pages to continue.

For startups

Open →

NDA and contracts

Open →

Guide: protecting an idea before presenting it

Open →

Torn between several of these situations?

Describe what you want to protect and when. We'll open the case that fits.

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