Quote from Martin Schweiger on April 25, 2018, 11:48 pm

Your question is not clear. Why and how would one want to protect data of customers that are only "potential customers", which means that they are not yet customers? Why do you say "their potential customers"? Why not the potential customers of another company? And why is this a problem that is specific for start-up companies?

Quote from gyue on April 26, 2018, 1:26 am

A start-up in a particular industry field may consider that its prospective customers can be profiled according to certain traits, such as sub-sectors within industries.

The start-up may consider subscribing to third party social media apps where representatives of prospective customers are likely to openly interact with one another online.

When the start-up signs up as a member of the online community via the respective social media app, it has the means to build up its own database of contacts for prospective customers derived from the data content made available by other community members on the social media app.

Quote from Martin Schweiger on April 26, 2018, 2:12 pm

jolly good!