Compete Or Defend your IP?

What's your opinion?

"Is IP really defensible these days as a competitive barrier/asset/protection, or am I just kidding myself and should get to work being better, faster, smarter in my sector?"

Bridge Of Death - These questions three

I work backwards from an exit, as that is the ultimate brass or golden ring. Entrepreneurs banter about how people buy teams, technology, or IP? Clearly if you're the acquisition target then all three is obviously the Holy Grail. Most are lucky to have one in their pocket, many think they have two, very few of us have all of them buttoned up. The tough question with resting on IP is, are you willing to defend, is it worth the fight, and can you do so successfully?

When standing at the "Bridge of Death" (Monty Python) try to answer these questions three:

1. Is our goal to build IP and process to be defended as our ultimate asset/protection?

2. Are we better off just competing with a great product path, focusing solely on steady customer acquisition and revenue. Is our team, pipeline, revenue our ultimate asset?

3. If #1, can/will you be successful defending? Will your rooster win the chicken fight?

Honestly ask your team what is the answer to #3 at the Bridge of Death...(great scene):

Are we tipping the exit scale towards buying teams as much, if not more than IP in the start-up? Demand for talent is so tight that it often forces us to either poach, steal or buy with an exit. It's also seen as a way to put the handcuffs on a good team, while at the same time taking a competitor off the street. More and more people we talk to say the pace of rapid start-ups from MVP to market is focusing teams on being better, faster, smarter. It's dumb to blatantly ignore prior art or defensible IP, but this feels like the really hard question to answer; is your IP truly defensible, or should you just bust ass?

What if you spend your time being rapid, learning more, being better at execution, selling, building a pipeline, closing deals? Is the IP The distraction (unless it's crazy obvious that you have great IP), worth the internal argument you might have, the cost to really button up, or the distraction to focus on.

I've had this discussion with many founders I have worked with and it's a source of real tension (which is why I bring it up and love to hear other opinions). Have you had to defend IP before? Have you ever been locked up in an exit because of a troll coming to lay claim? What is the time spent, cost, impact, likely exit? I'll bet my partner Chip has an opinion :-) . What do you think as fellow entrepreneurs? We'd love to know which way you lean and if this issue has been a difficult team issue or a clear yes either way?