Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Did you start a company whilst employed?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 110 posts

Re: Ask HN: Did you start a company whilst employed?

#91

Post by pokstad »

USNetizen wrote: post #86
pokstad wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Poaching employees is a purely private matter though. When a company contracted by the government agrees to subcontract to smaller "disadvantaged" companies, but then hires it's own employee's firm, that may borderline on fraud from the taxpayer's perspective.

It has nothing to do with hiring staff, and you can't be an employee subcontracting an employer, that doesn't make sense. I don't think I clearly explained that you bring work to your FORMER employer, whom you leverage as a relationship. You can't carry on as an employee while you have contracts to your name, that isn't allowed. But you can work on some of the relationship building while you are employed and make the…

Depends on what you are doing to "relationship build": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darleen_Druyun#United_States_Ai...

As a result, my company now does ethics training every year. "Relationship building" before changing ships is prohibited and can result in jail time.

Re: Ask HN: Did you start a company whilst employed?

#92

Post by gedrap »

But aren't you risking to get sued by doing that?

I think almost all job contracts include a clause stating that any paid work outside the company is allowed with written permission only (or, worse, everything produced belongs to the company). I don't think any employer would support that.

Of course, starting a start up is not exactly 'paid' work in a casual way, but I my common sense says that it's quite clearly 'paid work', or at least intended to be paid.

Re: Ask HN: Did you start a company whilst employed?

#93

Post by joeatp »

pud wrote: post #4

I started my first company while employed as a project manager at a web design shop. I started a (smaller) web design shop. While employed, I spent some evenings and weekends trying to find clients. I quit my job when I got my first paying client. The company I started isn't around anymore -- but here I am 18 years later still happily self-employed and doing well. So I'd say it was a success. Edit: Last month I gave…

I graduated from the iSchool this May and got a chance to hear your speech live. Easily the best speech of graduation weekend!

Re: Ask HN: Did you start a company whilst employed?

#94

Post by Looksee »

I started a small party rental service in college. It was sold after 2 years, but I made enough for rent, and most of the people I delivered to were extremely cool and sometimes let me hang out at their parties.

I was working as a statistician in LA overnight, from 9pm to 3am, and would work my delivery service from 4pm - 9pm and go to college in the afternoons. I was a broke student with no cash from home, so I made the best of it.

After college, I sold my rentals and client list to a friendly competitor (we would refer clients back and forth if we couldn't do the job) for a fair price. I quit my overnight job at about the same time. My employer took my quitting OK, and the company ended up paying me for another 2 months to be on standby and to train the replacement they hired. Just be cool, and straight forward, I guess. I was very clear at the start of my stat job that I was in college and wanted to keep this gig with those particular hours. I rejected a promotion offer they made because I planned to leave and told them so. My boss and I got along well, so to quit was bittersweet.

No regrets, I am successful still, in a completely different space.

Once you have to go out and kill your own meat for dinner.... food just never tastes the same from anywhere else.

I haven't worked a fulltime job for someone else in 5 years.

Re: Ask HN: Did you start a company whilst employed?

#95

Post by swombat »

lee wrote: post #79
swombat wrote: post #41

I started my first company while employed as a Consultant at Accenture/UBS. I did not tell anyone at work that I was doing so, nor did I work on the business while at the office. Vocalix was a tech startup, aiming to "put voice on the web". I'll spare you the details, but I worked on it from 4am to 7am every day, mostly thanks to the wond'rous benefits of Modafinil, after which I would take a one hour nap and then go…

Just curious, did you take Modafinil continuously for 9 months straight as well?

Yes, mostly.

Re: Ask HN: Did you start a company whilst employed?

#96

Post by freeqaz »

gsk wrote: post #5

I started https://filespin.io when employed. We are doing well in enterprise space. Getting ready to release for developers. One advice I could have used when I started: It is unnecessary to worry about your current employer. The truth is: "current employer" is a blanket name for only a handful of people and most often they don't care very much as long as what you do isn't affecting them adversely. Have non-compete a…

Change your color scheme on the content, that is hard text to read! Greenish background with orange text is bad. Awesome product though. :)

Re: Ask HN: Did you start a company whilst employed?

#97

Post by freeqaz »

annapurna wrote: post #65
lauriswtf wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks. Kohana was slowly dying at the time and the development had almost stopped (currently the framework is completely dead). But really I just wanted to try a new stack and Django looked promising. Also had prior Python experience. In the next project [0] we went from Python/Django to Scala/Play :) [0] - http://datazenit.com/

Interesting to see how your sites have evolved but I guess you found the right tools based on their applications. Both sites look good. Just two comments: - Datazenit blog: Font size seems a bit smaller - Hiburo: Mediakit link is broken (dropbox access?) Good luck with both!

I agree on the font size. A bit bigger would help a lot.

Re: Ask HN: Did you start a company whilst employed?

#98

Post by retrogradeorbit »

sumedh wrote: post #30
pud wrote: post #4

I started my first company while employed as a project manager at a web design shop. I started a (smaller) web design shop. While employed, I spent some evenings and weekends trying to find clients. I quit my job when I got my first paying client. The company I started isn't around anymore -- but here I am 18 years later still happily self-employed and doing well. So I'd say it was a success. Edit: Last month I gave…

That was a nice talk. Why am I getting the Jobs stanford speech vibe in your talk.

I think it's the format. Three stories from their life.

Re: Ask HN: Did you start a company whilst employed?

#99

Post by retrogradeorbit »

alanbyrne wrote: post #3
paraschopra wrote: post #2

Yes, I started http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/ when I was employed as R&D engineer. I told them way before and the business interests wasn't competing. The company is doing quite well. My advice would be to say upfront and declare what you're doing, and if possible get in writing that this is something you'll own (and not them).

I agree with paraschopra. Many places I have worked have included a clause in the employment contract that says something along the lines of "Anything you create whilst working for us, including in your own time, will become property of our company"

There's doubt if such clauses are even legal. Depending on the wording of the clause it could be considered restraint of trade. I would also never sign such a contract. I would strike the clause and see what they say. If they try and defend the 'your own time' part, I would take that as meaning they actively intend to steal my personal work.

Re: Ask HN: Did you start a company whilst employed?

#100

Post by retrogradeorbit »

ntrepid8 wrote: post #36
dblacc wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know of any other way around this, other than going to your employer explicitly ?

I think the laws are different depending on the state but most of those overly broad agreements are not enforceable. Usually it has to be something that you could have only created with proprietary knowledge gained from your employer or access to customers gained during the course of business. So just because you are a web developer by day, your employers do not own the Minecraft forum you maintain by night. I'm not…

Yes, I too was explained this by a lawyer. The defence is the Restraint Of Trade doctrine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restraint_of_trade

Post reply on HN