> Nothing. So the only defense would be, having a good headstart, by having a working product by the time of release. Just presenting ideas and sketches does no

> Nothing. So the only defense would be, having a good headstart, by having a working product by the time of release. Just presenting ideas and sketches does not give this edge. Nobody is suggesting you should publicly disclose all your preliminary ideas and sketches. It's more about researching your users problems and having discussions there. Plus you could argue doing this actually aids in your "headstart" rather than hinders it: 1. You can approach the project with a better understanding of the problem domain and thus can tweak your solution to the captive market (rather than having to repeatedly pivot your product until you chance upon that market). 2. You already have contacts of potential customers before you launch. Anyone working in secret has to figure those two problems out after they launch.