barriers to entry

there are many barriers to entry in any sector of the economy, and those hinder competition.

a universal barrier is money, and its availability in most cases is dependent on lenders.  someone with an idea must make a proposal to a lender, and the odds of lending to a legitimate prospect depends on the risk and potential return in the lender's view.

an accurate prediction of the involved risk requires a comprehensive analysis of factors in both the involved sector and the proposed idea.  perhaps a NDA (non disclosure agreement) is utilized at this juncture to secure the entrepreneur's intellectual capital, but the lender has to agree to be bound to secrecy of whatever is revealed.  some lenders may not be willing to take that risk, as then they can't utilize any of that information in making future decisions (i think, though i don't know the legal intricacies)

plus, the entrepreneur has to trust the lender to abide by the NDA.  who's monitoring the lender?  perhaps if the government facilitated these exact exchanges, it would foster confidence in approaching lenders and encourage more innovation in the economy.