Everytime I read articles and consume all other content around attemping a startup, I see no consideration for those whom are employed under employement contract to assign both moral rights and intellectual property to their employer. I have read Lean Startup by Eric Ries and consumed a ton of Y combinator content.
Under these circumstances, how can one validate the market using a minimal vialable product, for something truly novel? Futhermore, the're contractually unable build an MVP as result of assigning their full intellectual property rights for anything loosely related to their job.
What can one do under these circumstances, and let's face it, its found in the majority of employment contracts within the tech industry?
Anyone any thoughts on this? Moreover, I'm considering leaving a very well paid software developer job to free myself of this obligation, with the intention of building a product to offer real value to both me and others alike.
Check the SEO space, and see how many people are running ads on the main search terms, how hard is it to rank for the the main keywords. Check if forums exists, and discount coupons for similar products in marketplaces, check for similar products on product hunt and all the other product websites like Appsumo, Capterra, etc.
Look for blogs, Youtube channels, Facebook groups, subreddits. Join the communities and post there, ask questions. Interact one on one with at least 15 or 20 people and ask them about their needs.
You can do all this in a couple of weeks in the evening, without even writing a single line of code, and validate your idea.
Regarding the legal part, unless you are directly competing with your employer, they couldn't care less.
And even then, a lot of companies are created by people that learned the industry by working for other companies.
Your boss does not care about your side project, as long as you get the job done. But for you to feel better, don't put your name on it until you have quit your job, it's the internet you can still be anonymous.
No company is going to waste their time and expensive legal resources gratuitously suing you for a side project, unless it's something blatant that directly impacts their bottom line.
I wouldn't tell your boss about your side-project either. He will likely just see it as a sign of lack of dedication, that your priorities are elsewhere, and a tell sign that you will leave soon anyway.
So if they are on the fence on keeping you, that might trigger a decision.
> No company is going to waste their time and expensive legal resources gratuitously suing you for a side project, unless it's something blatant that directly impacts their bottom line.
Don't be so sure. Some jurisdictions allow companies to own the IP you create outside of work hours if it's explicitly in your contract or you're using work resources.
They may not sue you... until you have profit - then they'll want to collect their rightfully legal share.
You should be so lucky.
This.
Some people are either too naive or too trustworthy of their boss. You should never disclose your side gigs yo anyone remotely connected to your work unless they are also part of your side gig.
How do you actually do this? Message random people to hop on a zoom chat for 30 min to discuss their problems? How do you word this? Am I weird that I can't think of anything that someone else could come up with that I would want to chat with a random stranger on the internet if they approached me for this?
I've developed the product until it had a certain maturity. I've then onboarded two co-founders who also helped part-time. One helped with marketing, one with develoent. I've found them through YC cofounder match and the dev from GitHub OSS projects. Together, we've landed our first paying customer. With a few more leads in the pipeline, we were able to start the fundraising process.
We then slowly transitioned from side project to full time. The complete team is now full time for 2 months and we're very happy how things are going.
I can say that it was a damn struggle to get all this up and running with 2 young kids and without ruining the family. I'm thankful that my wife is very supportive. It's weird when your partner accepts that you work 3 hours per day on the weekend while the kids sleep. But there was no other way. It needed to be done. Of you really believe in what you do, it's possible, even with a family. If you have questions, please ask.
[1] https://github.blog/2017-03-21-work-life-balance-in-employee... [2] https://github.com/github/balanced-employee-ip-agreement/blo...
Forgive my ignorance, but is this statement required in any of the jurisdictions in the world? In a post-slavery world, an employer cannot own what I choose to do with my own resources outside the scope of my employment.
I'm assuming you're not competing with your employer, nor are you building your startup on your employer's time or with your employer's resources, in which case there's nothing wrong with this approach ethically.
Paypal has supported personal accounts since the 90s. Stripe supports personal accounts. Google/Apple/Amazon/MS/Steam/Gumroad and others will all work individuals as well as businesses.
In exchange they take a heftier cut than what you'd get if you used a service like Stripe.
This may make it less likely that your employer will take you to court, but if you do this and your employer does choose to pursue a case against you after you leave the court will see it as intentionally deceptive and it definitely won't help your argument.
Above reasoning is in line with why companies don't search for existing patents when developing new technologies. If they search for prior work and are found guilty of infringement, that's considered willful infringement, in which case damages are tripled.
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Whether or not you're in CA, you should consider speaking to an employment lawyer in your jurisdiction to find out the relevant details.
1: https://law.justia.com/codes/california/2011/lab/division-3/...
In addition to regulatory exceptions, some companies have policies where you can check in with the company to see if they would like to assert their IP rights over your work.
If you work at a computer chip manufacturer and you decide you'd like to moonlight developing robots that make nacho-cheese chips, there's a pretty good chance that HR will be willing to give you a written document waiving their IP assignment in a narrowly-tailored way.
I have successfully taken that approach in order to preserve my IP rights to continue my academic work and collaborations as I entered industry in an unrelated field.
The book The Mom Test also points out well that lots of people will say your idea is good even when they have no intention of buying. They don't want to be assholes so they lie to you to make you feel good.
The real question is, how often are you signing away all of your intellectual property to your employer. Honestly, I've never had that in a single contract.
Dont assume things are unenforceable just because they sound stupid.
When I got hired the contract was apparently not up to standards (but very nice). After a few years they got some lawyers to write up a new one, and it included such a "we own everything" clause.
I refused to sign it. The boss explained the intention was only on company time or with company assets. So I got them to change it to include that wording.
I'd never sign a contract with an all-encompassing "we own everything" clause, my spare time is mine. I know it probably wouldn't have held up in court where I live, but I feel it's about respect more than anything.
Also regarding "availability". One contract said something like "The employee must be available for emergency work at any point" which also felt a bit abusive. When asked about it, they said "in extreme emergencies, and not after working hours of course, or when you're on vacation" so I refused to sign until that wording was added to the contract.
At first they claimed it was just "standard" wording and maybe they can't change it. But after refusing to sign the contract, it was apparently possible to change.
Once you're convinced and ready to start building I think you just have to quit like you're saying. I did exactly that about 6 months ago because I had the exact same type of contract (despite what other folks are saying, they're EXTREMELY common, pretty sure all FAANG has them).
Good luck!!
This is true, but it's possible that even this act could indicate that the founder has developed valuable IP that his employer could claim. It would seem ridiculous to think that even just having an idea could make it assignable to your employer, despite not having actually written any of the code.
However, there are some circumstances where it could seem reasonable. For example, if you work in Industry X and come up with an idea related to Industry X and your employer's specific niche in that industry, it seems less unreasonable that your employer would care if you struck out on your own and started a startup in that niche. They would argue that your knowledge of that niche derived from your work as an employee, and they would try to tie your creation to proprietary information that you were privy to as an employee.
This isn't to say they would win — but they could cause you quite a headache if you built a successful company.
FWIW, IIAL and have seen folks argue over less!
Some communities are too nice, so what they say will be biased and inaccurate. Especially the most vital question of whether they will be willing to pay for it.
The need might be real, your solution might be an excellent fit and it would clearly save the target audience a headache or two. And the audience would agree. They will like what you do, they will want to be supportive and encouraging. Up until the point they need to start using it. And then they all will ghost you. Whoops.
Monish Pabrai used to be a software engineer and launched a company while he was working. This company grew to a few million in annual revenue. He‘s also the author of two investing books and sat down for a lunch with Warren Buffet and regularly has dinner with Carlie Munger.