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Ask HN: How to validate a startup idea whilst employed?

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Re: Ask HN: How to validate a startup idea whilst employed?

#11

Post by fny »

> What can one do under these circumstances, and let's face it, its found in the majority of employment contracts within the tech industry?

This highly depends on where you live, what you've signed, and the precedent that exists in your locale.

In California, for example, non-competes are unenforceable whereas in other states they are. However, you may be sued for other reasons.

If you're well paid, go pay a lawyer to look through your employment contracts to learn how you could go about doing it.

Re: Ask HN: How to validate a startup idea whilst employed?

#12

Post by moneywoes »

sanjayio wrote: post #8

If you’re trying to find something truly novel, it might prove extremely difficult. In Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell talks about finding something truly novel and extremes of success are a combination of experience, network, and time period. If you’re working 9-5, you can imagine that it’s tough to develop experience outside of your area of expertise, develop a network, or time something perfectly. I’m not saying this t…

Do you have a blog? Would be super interested in your story and how you’ve reached this stage

Re: Ask HN: How to validate a startup idea whilst employed?

#13

Post by ryandrake »

codingdave wrote: post #4
jackfruit2 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah my contract is very wide in my opinion, given there is always some level of overlap when developing software. Unfortunaly I signed it unchallenged when needing employment during the pandemic :( Below is an excerpt from my contract: We understand that lots of our employees have tech related ideas that they work on outside of working hours. In a case where your idea overlaps or conflicts with the work of said comp…

> In a case where your idea overlaps or conflicts with the work of said company IANAL, but it seems pretty clear to me - as long as your idea isn't related to their work, you are in the clear. Keep in mind that the software you write is not the "work of said company" - it is just a tool. The solutions they solve in the markets to which they sell are their work. Do side gigs in other industries and you should be fine.

Keep in mind a lot of BigTech companies will claim a very broad swath of topics are "related to their work". If one of their 30,000 employees are working on X, they can claim your X is related to their work and therefore subject to their broad IP assignment policy.

I was warned during onboarding of my last few jobs that most software side projects would fall under their umbrella of "related business" and that their lawyers regularly aggressively pursued side projects. Who knows, maybe they were bluffing but I'm not willing to go toe to toe with 2,000 corporate lawyers to find out.

Re: Ask HN: How to validate a startup idea whilst employed?

#14

Post by throwawaymaths »

IANAL.

Make sure you put in a carveout for every repo you have in GitHub. It helps to have a lot of public ones, then roll in your private ones into the list. Even if you have to pivot one of your private accounts, you get legal cover for working on it. Odds are the legal team won't bother checking on the contents of every single enumerated repo, and it would be insane to not hire you when you have those repos. I recommend claiming that you might have to do some work on any of these repos because other people might ask for support for those libraries. You can also make that claim for a private repo, too.

Insist that your employer provide a work only laptop. Obviously, never put any of your private repo code on your work laptop.

Re: Ask HN: How to validate a startup idea whilst employed?

#15

Post by [deleted] »

throwawaymaths wrote: post #14

IANAL. Make sure you put in a carveout for every repo you have in GitHub. It helps to have a lot of public ones, then roll in your private ones into the list. Even if you have to pivot one of your private accounts, you get legal cover for working on it. Odds are the legal team won't bother checking on the contents of every single enumerated repo, and it would be insane to not hire you when you have those repos. I rec…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: How to validate a startup idea whilst employed?

#16

Post by rockemsockem »

A lot of times you can validate whether a market exists without writing any code. You can engage in communities that would use your potential product and see if there are problems there that exist for a decent number of people.

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!!

Re: Ask HN: How to validate a startup idea whilst employed?

#17

Post by jborden13 »

You'd be foolish to start a company with immediate liabilities created due to ip and employment contract violations. Those are headwinds you might not overcome. If you think you can get away with it, then that's your call.

That said, everything is manageable. If you really believe in the effort, I would hedge by finding a well enough paying contracting gig (without any legal entanglements), then leave your current job and start marketing your offering.

At some point you have to start. It never happens if you don't. But always cover risk. Good luck

Re: Ask HN: How to validate a startup idea whilst employed?

#19

Post by gnicholas »

Depends where you live. In California, there are limits to what your employer can force you to assign to them. Roughly speaking, if you do it on your own time and with your own equipment, and it doesn't relate to your employer's current/predicted business, it's yours. [1]

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/...

Re: Ask HN: How to validate a startup idea whilst employed?

#20

Post by toast0 »

codingdave wrote: post #4
jackfruit2 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah my contract is very wide in my opinion, given there is always some level of overlap when developing software. Unfortunaly I signed it unchallenged when needing employment during the pandemic :( Below is an excerpt from my contract: We understand that lots of our employees have tech related ideas that they work on outside of working hours. In a case where your idea overlaps or conflicts with the work of said comp…

> In a case where your idea overlaps or conflicts with the work of said company IANAL, but it seems pretty clear to me - as long as your idea isn't related to their work, you are in the clear. Keep in mind that the software you write is not the "work of said company" - it is just a tool. The solutions they solve in the markets to which they sell are their work. Do side gigs in other industries and you should be fine.

It really depends on who you work for. When I was working at a startup, most of my side projects weren't related, but when I was working at Yahoo and Facebook, well it's hard to do something interesting on the Internet that's not related to Yahoo, and maybe Facebook (they're not as broad as Yahoo was, but they could potentially claim a lot). It doesn't matter if it's something way outside of your job area, or even if it's something they would never let you do at work, if it's in their sphere.
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