The clauses I have seen attempt to claim all intellectual work regardless of when it was done or whether it was related to the job.
To me, this is an indication that we truly have not progressed beyond wage slavery. I believe such clauses should be illegal.
I think one thing we might be able to do is to create a list of companies that have blanket clauses like this and then some people (not most) will have the luxury of boycotting them. I see this as a human rights issue actually. It is an attempt to trap an individual indefinitely in a labor mode.
And yes, it's extremely common and a standard legal practice. So was outright slavery for many thousands of years. However, attempting to claim unrelated work outside of office hours is a violation of natural rights.
> a bunch of contract clauses that basically lets the company own all IP while employed.
This is default here as well (Germany), but I only interpret this as stuff done during work time. So the stuff I come up with and the code I write at the office on my workstation is automatically owned by my employee. That's fine, because if it wasn't, that would cause all kinds of legal trouble should I ever leave the company.
But if I create things in my free time at home, on my own equipment, then that's MINE, and I might start a company from it -- the only trouble might come if there is reason to believe I stole code/trade secrets (e.g. starting a company in the same niche) or my employee might assume I worked on my it during my paid hours (e.g. all of a sudden bootstrapping a 100 employee company, while getting paid 40h a week until yesterday).
Of course your contract is probably very different, but I have a difficult time imagining that what you're doing in your unpaid time is owned by your employee. Logic here is: You're paid to work a specified time of hours per time interval (e.g. 40h/week). What you do there is owned by your boss. Then if your boss wanted to own all you do/come up with outside of that time, he would need to buy that time from you as well. E.g. to own all you come up with, even in your sleep, you should be eligible for a 7*24h/week compensation. Of course this is more morals than law, but well, maybe you just misinterpreted the wording?
//edit: Mind the discussion below this thread. IANAL, and my moral point of view might not match the legal reality.
Do not do anything non-work related on company equipment! Ever, for any reason, seriously don't do it! Do not even research the idea! Assume the company is logging everything. They likely are. Honestly, I'd just focus on work and learn if you are just starting out. Learn as much as you can while employed by other folks (they are basically paying you to learn). Learn as much about the business your company is in too. For example, say you are a software dev at a VFX company. You might only care about your specific dev project in a tiny silo. But, learn the larger context of where your piece fits into the bigger company picture or industry. Learn about your company, where it fits into the bigger picture, where are things headed in your industry. This will open all types of jobs opportunities as you can pivot around in your industry. Why are you doing what you are doing? This will really help you down the road when you start your company as you want to think of the larger workflows and where you fit in. Focus on workflows as the underlining tech constantly changes (but workflows rarely do)! Running a company is a 24/7 thing, you will not get weekend or nights off, so don't burn yourself out working for someone else and doing your own thing useless you really think it will work. I have tons of 10% complete projects that I thought where good ideas but never panned out. So, just play around and see what might work. Don't take it all the way unless you are really sure.
If you want a job at something like gitlab. Hangout on their open-source project, learn their codebase, and send in patches. Even if they are simple docs patches. Send in 50 of those and you will start to learn the devs. Ask one of them what it is like to work there, ask them to refer you, etc. The CEO of gitlab is constantly on HN (I swear he has an alert for mention of gitlab). So, he will likely see this post. My point, take some initiative and try not to go through the conventional recruiter pipe (apply on website and no one ever gets back to you cycle). Doing this, has worked out really well for me in the past, and it will work for you too. Sure, it is more work but gets you ahead of everyone else as you are making an effort. Be strategic about this and really choose who you want to work for and go after them. Having something like, hey, I patched 50 minor typos in your code/docs goes a long way, between you and some nobody!
There's a lot of awful legal advice in the comments here much of which ignores key issues like what exactly your contract says, which legal jurisdiction you are in and what you are planning to do. Ignore all of it.
If you want to know about the legal consequences of something you would like to do, take your contract to a lawyer before you do it and pay for written advice.
As for what you can do to be successful when you start a company here's some advice:
1) Network. People make crucial decisions about large amounts of money on reputation, instinct and lots of other intangibles all the time. Build a list of genuine contacts. Build a reputation for competence and integrity so that those contacts think and speak well of you. This pays off more than anything else you could do for getting off the ground.
2) Learn. I don't mean learn certain technologies or do lots of qualifications. Learn about an industry (not IT) and it's business problems. Learn this directly from people doing the work, not from go-betweens or books. Of course learn tech too but tech is pretty easy to get to grips with if you're really a geek. When you match cool tech up to real business problems suddenly you look like some kind of wizard.
> a bunch of contract clauses that basically lets the company own all IP while employed.
Probably the most practical solution here is to simply disregard this clause in the contract. Breaching such a clause would be a civil, not a criminal offense, and it is unlikely that a civil complaint would be even considered unless there was a lot of money at stake, and it was easy/cheap to prove/uphold. In order for it to be upheld your employer would have to spend a lot of time and energy deciding, and then proving what it was you built "on their time".
In other words, given that you don't actively publicize your own personal contribution to a commercial project its very unlikely that your employer can have any leverage over you in this regard.
Don't overindex on your contract wording: just because it says that doesn't mean your company will in practice a) realize that you worked on something else while employed there, b) care enough that they'll take the time to sue you, and c) win that case if they do.
Realistically speaking, unless your side gig is a direct competitor or becomes a massive success, you're probably fine. And you can reduce risk further by not launching your company while still employed, which makes it that much harder for them to notice and/or prove you worked there at the same time.
1. Be fair to your company. They are paying you to make their product succeed. Imagine a future situation where you are running a succesful company. Would you want your employees taking your money while working on their own pet projects?
2. An hour or two every day and code marathons on weekends can get your a basic version of product out in a few months.
3. Never give in to temptation to steal office hours to work on your project.
If you want to build a company, use the time to build relationships with your future customers and credentials for your reputation for being good at whatever you mean to do. Your employer can't own these.
Once you have those relationships, learning their problems and proposing a solution to them, and having them pay for it is also likely outside the scope of your job with your employer.
If the problem is valuable enough to them, you can agree to solve it for them for enough money that it will float you for the first 6 months while you develop it. Quit your job, live on your savings, maybe pick up some contracts if you can't raise seed capital, and deliver the product to your customers.
Companies aren't made of code, products are, and there are no products without customers, as otherwise it's just art or a science project. Companies are made primarily of relationships with customers, underwritten by products, some of which are made of code. That direction is not reversible.
I've developed my own software projects, and for a long time tried to figure out how practising something I could pay someone offshore to do for $30k/year could somehow be worth so much more if I could just do some secret thing right. The advice was always scattershot, be more this, do more that. What it came down to was, it's not the code, it's not the features, it's not the design or architecture - it's the relationships.
Who do you have relationships with and what are their problems? If you can't solve them with what you are good at, maybe you need to find new people with new problems. If you can't do that, find someone who knows people who have problems and money, and then partner with them to sell a solution.
It sounds so simple, and it is, but if it were easy, everyone would do it.
Does anyone have any anecdotes about companies enforcing this rule and coming after a founder that started a side project while working for the company?
Launch fast. Do not spend a year building your first one without launching.
Your motivation will tank at times... in those moments its extremely helpful to have paying customers--you'll find your motivation replenishes a lot easier.
> what can I do while employed to have a better chance of succeeding when I do start a company?
Market research! If there was one single thing I should have done more of before quitting my job to start a company it was making sure people would buy what I was going to build. If there was one single thing I should have done less of before quitting my job it’s spending time building something I wasn’t sure people would buy.
They own IP but there are lots of valuable things you can do for a startup that don't involve important IP.
For b2b you can start talking to potential clients in the space. They don't own your network.
For b2c you can start finding communities and building an email list. They don't own your audience.
This is great because as a dev it forces you to do the hard stuff first that has the biggest impact on your success or failure. Not coding which is the fun easy part(for coders).
1) Do NOT use your company provided gadgets / facilities - laptop, mobile etc to accomplish any of your personal / startup task. 2) Do NOT use company/office hours to work on your side projects. 3) Most companies do not mind their employees taking up side gigs unless it affects productivity or a competitor is involved. Talk to your manager.
FYI, I am from a developing country as well.
Here is what I'd do.
* Pick a tech stack and get really good at it. You can do it at your company's time and equipment as it is gaining knowledge.
* Give yourself 6 months to blog and contribute to open source on your own laptop. Get something decent to get started. If you feel buying a Macbook Pro or a similar Dev laptop is a huge expense, look for options to rent it in the short term. Consistency is key, ensure that you are pushing out a new post every week.
* Get into a freelancing gig where you are able to set your own times. This will give you a sense of business priorities and how to pitch and get clients. Conduct trainings and workshops and charge market rates for your expertise.
* Then if you really find a problem that needs more than your mind and two hands to solve, by all means setup a company, hire people and do things. As a developer looking for freedom from the man, freelancing is a good way to gain that freedom. Your own employer might hire you on your terms for twice the pay he is paying you currently.
Show up. Do the work. Take every opportunity to learn the skills you deem relevant to your long term plans.
Don't fill up all your free time with other work-related projects. You won't be able to learn as fast on the job if you're constantly depleting your cognitive reserves.
Do sports. Go out. Read a book. Don't load up on side projects you might not be able to finish.
One of your biggest risks when you start your own company is handling the business side of the business. The tech might be the easy part. Your present employer may be willing to teach you the business side if you're willing. Allow yourself to be noticed as a person who can be groomed for management.
I worked at a small company for a few years before my spouse and I decided to relocate. Today I have a small side business, and everything I know about running that business, I learned from the job that I worked for a few years, a couple decades ago.
Would you mind sending me your resume? I have a job you could do for $30k/year, it’s not glamorous but also not difficult and I don’t care how much time you spend working on your side projects as long as the work gets done in a reasonable amount of time. Email is in my profile.
If you want to be extra paranoid, sit down and make a list of everything you need to do to start a small software company besides write code.
Stuff like, find co-founders, identify the customers for the product you want to create, figure out your business model (direct sales? support? freemium? ads?), run numbers on your business model (how successful would you have to be to turn a profit?), how do you file taxes as a business (in many countries the process is different), how will you recruit employees, remote, developers, sales, do you need to incorporate immediately, how do you do that, is there a payroll/benefits provider you should sign up with, how much does that cost, where can you get angel and VC funding for your company, are there any conferences you should go to to identify customers or competitors, etc etc etc.
There's a lot of stuff to do and learn to start a successful company besides producing you MVP. Get them out of the way now and focus on honing your programming skills. And if you don't like thinking about taxes and employee benefits and balancing what you can afford against what you want to provide, well, you might consider just working at a startup instead of starting one.
A.f.a.i.k. while I am not a lawyer, rule of thumb is anything you do
* on your own equipment
* on your own time
can be considered yours.
If you want to be extra sure, maybe consider first switching from employment to consulting? A friend of mine was primarily a consultant in pc-game-marketing space and then he founded a company, slowly building out a product.
On the other hand, I get that going for consulting gigs can be daunting, personaly, I prefer the cushy job that is mandated to pay me a salary every month, and to pursue my side-projects, I managed to negotiate a 4 day work-week. In the end the 3 day weekend mostly became a venue for more family time, but I still see it as a more viable future option, than working on a project an hour after my kid is asleep/before she wakes up :D
While I can't comment on the company related stuff, I'm also from a 3rd world country and you can absolutely alter contract clauses. A contract outlines a working relationship between an employer & an employee, it is not a slave trade agreement.
The most important is to use your free time efficiently without burning out.
If you contract remotely, you are less likely to have clause in your contract that requires all of your IP outside of work to be owned.
Most small companies won't even have anything like this in their contract. Larger companies, especially in California, will definitely include this in their contract.
You said you are in a third-world country. Are you getting remote work in a different country? If so, the likelihood that a company will spend the resources to fight you in court in another country is almost 0.
Maybe this will help you https://blog.ladder.io/business-idea/
Before you do any development, ask legal for a written exclusion for your specific project.
Do not rely on the fact it may not apply, if your idea generates millions, you can be certain they'll manage to draw a connection.
If they can't/won't provide one, you either quit and work on it, or don't.
What they can't seize from you is your thoughts, unless again you're silly enough to begin development without doing the above.
Regarding "I am from a third world country, so I won't be able alter the contract clauses", I dunno in what country you are working, but most of the western world isn't like that.
Perhaps you think like that because you are from a third world country and you are used to being abused by your employers.
(And it's not that I am western supremacist, actually I happen to like middle east and asia better)
Look at some inspirational talks by non westerners, like garyvee for example. He's immigrant. He's taken command of the situation. You can too. The only thing enabling him to do so is knowledge, experience, and a unique attitude.
Over the years I've emailed CEOs, CTOs, and PMs of some of the most successful companies in the world (and also a lot of professors), and you know what? Most of them respond. They're just a little busy.
By the way, I have a question. Why don't you just ask?
Opening a dialogue is never wrong nor is it actually difficult.
Btw, read everything here:
From my experience, as I did exactly that..
- If you're looking for a new job, find one that has a good work life balance and where you will learn skills relevant to what you want to do. In my case, I was weak in dev ops, so I picked a job where I'd learn that.
- As far as the legal front, a company can't own 100% of your time. When you begin working on your own stuff, use a separate computer, and keep notes with dates. Basically you want to show evidence, in a worst case scenario, that you created this in your own time and not using company resources.
- Then don't tell anyone about what you're working on until after you leave your job. Once you leave, ideally everyone will think that everything you built is post-job.
- Once you leave your job, depending on what you built (if it's competitive with your past job) it's good to tell everyone about it. My early investors were my co-workers.
That's just stuff off the top of my head. Happy to provide more info if you want. And best of luck to you! Starting a company is a hell of an adventure.
Two observations:
1. If you look at the contract, there will almost definitely be a clause where the company will claim rights over all IP that you generate, and that you need to pre-declare any IP that you already own (otherwise they will have the right to claim it). If there isn't, there should be and it's OK to push back against it not being there.
Once that is sorted, write up a declaration of all the ideas that you have had so far for your side hustle and submit it to the company. (You don't have to go into detail: bullet points are fine.)
This gives both you and the employer the protection they are looking for.
2. Starting a business is mostly not about the IP of the software. I have had customers go bananas over something that I spent a day writing. (I have also had stuff that I spent a year writing go nowhere and never sell.)
Most of the ideas that you think are good will be impossible to sell profitably. The first step in any business is establishing that there's a real customer need, and that you can reach those customers. You will probably try 20 different ideas before one works. Buy adwords for them, or do some other kind of outreach to customers and see what works: you also need to go and talk to potential customers. (e.g. every Saturday meet up with someone).
Off the back of this you will eventually find something that works, that's easy to sell and easy to explain, and you will probably have a backlog of customers wanting to buy it. You will also discover that it's probably only a few weeks' work to build the prototype. You can then approach your employer and discuss what you want to do, and get an exemption to the IP clause, or quit and use your savings.
If your first thought on starting a business is to start coding, you're setting yourself up for failure.
Pencil out a block of time each day to work on your project. This can be time spent researching, planning designing, building - the only rule is that you can not do ANYTHING ELSE that isn't related to your project during this time.
At minimum this should be at least one hour a day but 3 hours would be ideal.
Schedule the time and stick to it religiously and you will see results.
First, I think you have the right mindset and you are thinking about this the right way. So that is a good start.
- No one can stop you from learning. Learn what you need to to help prepare you to do something of your own. BUT do not use ANY company assets/laptop/network etc. to do the learning/research etc to be on the safe side.
- Build something. Yes definitely. On the side. even if just a concept. Tinker with stuff. Again do it outside of your company time/assets etc.
Remember that most companies won't give a shit unless you actually become big and noticeable. For example, I am sure google won't come after you for creating something that makes you $10,000/Month and you did not directly steal from them. I could be wrong but I am sure google has better things to do.
Finally, Do not let anything or anyone stop you from what you really want to do in life. life is short and It is not worth living it doing things that you don't want to do.
> I am from a third world country, so I won't be able alter the contract clauses.
I don’t think this is true. You can always request changes in the contract, and you should consider it. It may seem expensive, but worth it, if you have the money to have your own lawyer read your contract and propose modifications that suit you. It may also reveal to you that parts of your contract were unenforceable.
In my experience, it hasn’t hurt me or anyone I know who’s negotiated their contract. In some cases, because it’s somewhat rare for people to negotiate the non-compete terms, it made me look more confident and desirable than other candidates.
BTW, there is no reason you can’t do this long after being hired and after signing your employment agreement. Companies and lawyers can and do make addenda after the fact all the time.
First, with respect to the IP ownership. Be honest with the company you are joining about your entrepreneurial goals (it’s usually a quality that good managers like). You may underestimate their willingness to be flexible. Contracts are alway about setting terms, especially for future unknown situations - if you expect a future situation to arise you can set the right terms.
Second, being a good developer doesn’t always equate to launching a company. The skills you might use to launch something new might not be your dev skills at all. Understanding a problem/solution/market fit requires lots of skills you won’t get writing software. You can/should do customer research, low fidelity testing, etc. to prove to yourself something is a good idea before jumping into a new venture.
Save money. Get a job that pays as much as possible, even if it has shitty clauses around side projects, and just save as much money as you can. When you have 1-2 years of nest egg saved up (might be eating ramen, etc), then quit and go work on your company.
Optimize for getting a job with lots of paid time off and which doesn't require more than 40 hours per week (Government jobs are good for this) then use the time and energy you have left over to explore your ideas and business opportunities. Use this period to save up some money and quit when you feel you can't go further without quitting (and have some money saved up) or you are seeing significant traction. Also make sure that your IP is in a good place given your employment contract and be sure to document that work you have done outside work was in fact done outside work and to never use any company resources or tools to do work you don't want them to own.
> I'm from a third world country, so I won't be able to alter contract clauses
Just because you need a job doesn't mean you should accept whatever the company offers. You should be assertive and inquisitive when it comes to these kinds of clauses, especially at new jobs. I've had contracts altered slightly or completely before starting with a company, from things like where and with whom I get to work after I leave, to IP. Even if company says that this is a deal breaker for them and that the clause has to stay, and you choose to accept, I think it's good to at least demonstrate that your objection.
No need for interviews.
Look for an idea. Then spend time researching the details, the market and the competition. Find your niche. Interview potential customers. Find a co-founder. Start building a prototype as a side project.
A side note:
> even startups paying $30,000 work for me
Value yourself and your expertise more. You should expect 2x or 3x the mentioned amount from any respectable company, or even more if it's a position requiring expert-level knowledge. You being from a third world country should not affect your paycheck. If you're the same, or better, compared to someone in the SV, you should both be valued equally.
You can get a better paying job, keep the same lifestyle, and save the extra cash so you can afford longer breaks while you work on your stuff, or to invest it, so you have additional cash flow.
Regarding Pioneer.app, carefully consider. If I recall correctly they take a percentage, if they want and they only provide mentorship not really a lot of funds (some though).
I’d focus on an open source project in the realm of what you’re interested in. Email your manager asking if that’s alright, print and save the email. Make it clear it’s on your own time to improve your skills. Later use the open source project to start your own business, if it pertains to it. Otherwise at the very least, you’ll have gained skills and some credibility.
Many of the commenters have validly pointed out that you need to take care of the legal aspects. I’ve a few questions from the other side of things: Have you identified a customer segment and target group? Ideally these ppl have a problem you’re trying to solve. Please validate that they indeed have a problem. How? Talk to a few , research online etc. remember that entrepreneurship involves multiple hats. Learn a bit of finance- it’s the language of the business. Finally , Build , validate , learn repeat :-). Good luck!
You cannot and you should not due to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golem_effect
Companies can put anything in the employment agreement. What is enforceable and what isn't depends on the country and/or state you are working in, so starting there will help.
Don't work on your project during the office hour, or allow your project to affect your performance at work. There are two main reasons:
1. The employer is paying you to help their product/service succeed. It is unprofessional and immoral to deceive them. I've seen some colleagues do this and I was disappointed in them.
2. Work you produce at your place of employment belongs to the employer. It depends on the contract and I am not a lawyer, but it's best to protect your intellectual property.
You don’t need to own IP to start. Given how many companies fail, to get to protecting IP is a long way.
Most initial steps don’t have anything to do with your contract - coming up with ideas, learning, building MVPs, finding real needs in a market.
Once you find an unmet need and you prove that out, then you can think about quitting your job to do it, or doing it while at the job (which i advise against).
Also, you agreed to those terms so I don’t think it’s fair to abuse their(company you are currently working for) trust.
There's a lot you can do in terms of starting a company apart from writing code.
Things like competitive research, talking to customers and meeting possible co founders/team members out in the community. You can set up landing pages and test the market and hire contractors to do some work. Also, talking to customers (worth mentioning twice).
You can also read about starting a company (nolo books are good).
This will give you a foundation when you are ready that will put you ahead of others.
There is one phrase that coders need to look for in the inevitable IP contracts employers ask for -- "related to the business that <employer> conducts".
It is reasonable for your employer to ask you not to compete with them. It is not reasonable for them to say not to do side projects. And that phrase, or something similar, is what makes the contract say that. I always ask for it to be put into employment contracts, and refuse jobs without it.
Would creating a GPL or BSD licensed project and then contribute to that work (in case the employer allows work on FOSS)? Then one would presumably be free to start a business using that software after quitting. Also if it's BSD licensed there's nothing preventing one from close sourcing the stuff after quitting. Of course the code would potentially already be out in the world and used if it's in a public repo...
> participate in Pioneer.app tournaments so I can network
Anybody has any experience with this. How did you got in? What was your experience with it?
Several books on this precise topic, The 10% Entrepreneur is one of the best, full of useful info and practical examples. https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01AXE98UA/ref=dp-kindle-redirec...
Depending on your state, laws will work more/less in your favor. California law makes it hard for a company to sue you unless you explicitly steal IP and/or are a founder. Even non-competes don't hold up as well. If you work as a contractor attempt to get your contracts to be governed by CA law.
Have you considered creating or contributing to an open source project?
If your strategic in your choice, you can build some experience in what you want to do for your side project.
After you get a little bit of experience at the day job, you can always switch to a new position that is more friendly to what you want to do.
My suggestion is to make a careful attempt to modify the clauses to specify only related work done on company time.
If it is not possible, then work for them for awhile, save up, and try to find another company. Be upfront with the next company about the issue before you get too deep into the negotiation.
I've described how I've built a probitable side-project while still working a full time job here https://abot.app/blog/profitable-slack-bot-rails
unless you work 24/7 your own time should still be yours. however, anything generally developed / worked on on company resources is theirs. at least that how it works for my contract. That means u can on your own machines and own time make something for yourself. but if you ever once accidentally even load it onto work computer, it belongs to them.
if they don't even let you do that, then i would firstly seek a job which does let you work for yourself on your own time, and then start really pushing for your own company. Learning how to do so is free for you to pursue, as long as you don't 'make' anything on the companies' system / resources it should be out of their sight and safe to do.
hunker down and save as much money as you possibly can. it will take 3x longer than you think and you will need the savings.
literally this is your most important job. build a savings buffer of 3 years, at least. the bigger the buffer the less you will feel tempted to abandon it.
I’m not sure we are getting full situation. Companies never have a full on claim to all IP you do, rather only in certain circumstances
-using their IP -using their equipment -on their time
So get your own laptop, work on a side project outside of work hours, and don’t start a company that competes.
Good luck!
This is just an excuse you tell yourself to not start a company. A cop-out. Nobody at your current employer is going to know or care you started a company.
Don’t listen to most of the comments here, they’ve been brainwashed into fear and subservience to their employer.
Use your own time, equipment and ideas. Stay out of your employer’s market. If you are launching publicly tell your manager so they aren’t surprised if THEIR manager asks them.
This is a growth opportunity that will often make you more effective at your day job.
Best of luck.
1. try to build the whole thing for yourself in your free time
2. if 1. fails, see if investors are interested with what you were able to build
3. if 2. fails, pivot to something you can build, if 2 succeeds, hire 1-2 trusted employees who fill the gaps you are missing
I’d say negotiate away that clause or find another job. Company owning all IP outside work for the duration of employment is in my opinion a red flag. I’d not be surprised to learn they mistreat employees in other ways as well.
We're remote and side project friendly. Send me an email, filip at aevy dot com.
A few people have written about modifying their work contracts. Can you share the contract template you used instead? Can you explain how you negotiated the change?
Edit: maybe engineers can team up on this so things start to change?
Hire someone. Then you have a company. Just make sure that you are not competing with your current employer! Ask your employer just in case if you are allowed to run a side business. Its probably illegal to deny having a side business if its not a competitor. Make sure your own company becomes its own entity eg. it owns all IP not you, you are "only" the owner. Ask your employer if its ok to work for another company too. It might be illegal to deny that. Just make sure you are not competing. The all IP clause is to protect them from rouge employee stealing IP. And might even be illegal in the exact wording. When you start a company you want to get help with the paperwork then ask the lawyer if there's any issues with you current employee contract.
Does it need to be a tech company? My workaround for when companies have a super restrictive IP contract is to work on companies that don't require coding: eCommerce, local small business, blogging, etc.
I can only recommed you read this http://www.paulgraham.com/before.html Life changing
Abstraction !
You need to build strong tooling with abstraction to reduce, minimize boring, repetitive tasks.
Only then, you can maximize your company hours to do your own stuffs.
It’s called bootstrapping, there is a lot of reading available and even some success stories to help you keep yourself motivated.
Often we forget a company of one person is no company, it’s a business. A company implies multiple people working toward a goal, often people forget that, so start thinking about it now.
Start thinking about who you will hire. What will they do? How much do you need to pay them? What skills do they need?
Begin with a spreadsheet. Estimate monthly cash flow. How many employees can you afford? What’s the ROI from a single employee? In the beginning it may just be you. Which employees even contribute to revenue and which are just support? At what point does the ROI of the employee bring in enough revenue to hire a second employee and have sufficient runway for the business? Then figure out when you can hire the third, and the forth, and at what point (if ever) does revenue grow enough that you can start hiring dozens of employees. Does this business still make sense with this company?
How many hours do your employees work? What hours do they work? How much time off do they get? How much does it cost you? As your headcount grows, your revenue should be growing, but your costs also grow. Is there ever time to make big company investments? Better offices or company getaways for morale and team building? Do you even have offices? Where do all these people work? Surely you can’t all just be in a coffee shop somewhere. Do they work remotely? If so then what time zones are they in, and how will you know they can trust you or you trust them? How do you know they won’t steal from the company, or do their own personal work while working on company time?
Who will do your sales? Initially probably you, but not for long, you have other things to do. How will sales people be compensated? Purely commission based? Maybe it works if you have a very high value product, but even then you probably also need to give them a salary to keep them around. How much commission? How long is the sales cycle?
How will you measure employee performance? How will you deal with non-performers? How will you fire someone? With little to no mercy? Even if they really need the job?
And how will you delegate responsibilities? When do you plan to delegate spending decisions to someone who handles finances? When will you dedicate someone to hiring people and managing employee relations?
All this and more are things you will have to confront if you plan to build a real company.
The book Initiative is for this type of situation. https://www.amazon.com/Initiative-Proven-Method-Bring-Passio...
http://joshuaspodek.com/initiative
Disclosure: I wrote it.
Just get a cofounder and attribute all the IP to them. What can they do, steal the IP from them?
How do I participate in pioneer.app ? Tried logging on and it did not work.
you should see a lawyer about these things - its likely that your employer will claim ownership on your IP if its similar to what they produce. in my experience, its not worth the headache.
You can work for Postman, they are currently hiring in Bengaluru, Karnataka - India. They have a very open culture and even the company itself was a side tool developed while Abhinav Asthana worked in Yahoo!
I don’t think many of these comments are realistic. I’m truth, these clauses are likely defensive, particularly for tech companies. There is an almost 100% chance that if you started a company and left your job, your company will not register your coming or going in the slightest. If you’re some famous person that ends up starting some billion dollar company, and it was in an area highly relevant to your job, you might have a problem. Or if you try to sue them to stop doing something you created while employed for them. But if you’re just a regular person that starts some business that’s moderately successful (already an unlikely scenario), everything is going to be fine. It will likely take you YEARS and YEARS of toiling in obscurity before you come even close to profitability, and that’s if you’re lucky. You think some big tech company is even going to remember you? Even if you build a multimillion dollar business, that’s a drop in the bucket for them, not to mention legal fees, difficulty of enforcing the dubious contract, and the bad PR of squashing a former employee’s business.