Should I sign this agreement?
blog.neilni.com
Should I sign this agreement?
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Re: Should I sign this agreement?
#2I want to know why walking away from such a toxic deal made this developer feel like that would make them the bad guy in the partnership. It seems like the other party wanted everything and was giving nothing in return. I was disappointed to read the developer gave the code away in the end.
Re: Should I sign this agreement?
#3> My co-creator, an EMBA student, and I are taking the course as a way to iterate through our product and process. She is in charge of the business model, and I am doing the coding. Our professors urged everyone to start talking about equity splitting as soon as possible; and my co-creator had a really simple answer to that: "I should have 100%," she said.
That sounds like a bad deal already. Good thing he didn't sign the agreement. But i wonder what the agreement he drafted up contained.
Re: Should I sign this agreement?
#4> My co-creator, an EMBA student, and I are taking the course as a way to iterate through our product and process. She is in charge of the business model, and I am doing the coding. Our professors urged everyone to start talking about equity splitting as soon as possible; and my co-creator had a really simple answer to that: "I should have 100%," she said. That sounds like a bad deal already. Good thing he didn't sig…
I don't know, but he ended giving up the code for free. I would've gone solo in that situation.
Re: Should I sign this agreement?
#5> My co-creator, an EMBA student, and I are taking the course as a way to iterate through our product and process. She is in charge of the business model, and I am doing the coding. Our professors urged everyone to start talking about equity splitting as soon as possible; and my co-creator had a really simple answer to that: "I should have 100%," she said. That sounds like a bad deal already. Good thing he didn't sig…
Read the very next sentence. He accepted a full time position somewhere else.
She knew that I had accepted a full-time offer prior to starting the class
If he's not joining the company to run the project, he shouldn't have any ownership. How would that work?
What if one of the founders doesn't work full time on the company? Then they're not a founder. In my book nobody who is not working full time counts as a founder. Anyone who holds on to their day job gets a salary or IOUs, but not equity.[1]
Trying to making him an unpaid intern is a dick move. Although apparently the immigration status gets in the way of compensating him fairly?
Re: Should I sign this agreement?
#6It's not a standard NDA, it's a "CONSULTANT, NON-DISCLOSURE, AND INVENTION ASSIGNMENT AGREEMENT", very different!
This is a standard NDA from HBS: http://www.hbs.edu/entrepreneurship/pdf/Sample_NDA.pdf
Always trust yourself, your gut and your instincts in business. Never do anything in life you get a bad feeling about, including signing a CNDIAA.
"I made an iOS ecommerce app, along with backend server and a simple web-app POS system. My co-creator asked me to sign a standard NDA agreement except it specifies that I am an unpaid intern. My instinct tells me not to sign it."
Trust your instinct and good job writing a blog post about it asking for help.
Re: Should I sign this agreement?
#7What did he get out of it? If he got nothing, then the contract is typically invalid. You can't give something of value without getting something in return (the consideration)(I'm not a lawyer)
Re: Should I sign this agreement?
#8That's why you have the tongue in cheek pre-money valuation (seed) equation from Guy Kawasaki: Add 500k for every engineer on the team and subtract 250k for every MBA.
Re: Should I sign this agreement?
#9I want to know why walking away from such a toxic deal made this developer feel like that would make them the bad guy in the partnership. It seems like the other party wanted everything and was giving nothing in return. I was disappointed to read the developer gave the code away in the end.
Things are complicated when you're dealing with actual people as opposed to hearing about it second hand.
Re: Should I sign this agreement?
#10> My co-creator, an EMBA student, and I are taking the course as a way to iterate through our product and process. She is in charge of the business model, and I am doing the coding. Our professors urged everyone to start talking about equity splitting as soon as possible; and my co-creator had a really simple answer to that: "I should have 100%," she said. That sounds like a bad deal already. Good thing he didn't sig…
Read the very next sentence. He accepted a full time position somewhere else. She knew that I had accepted a full-time offer prior to starting the class If he's not joining the company to run the project, he shouldn't have any ownership. How would that work? What if one of the founders doesn't work full time on the company? Then they're not a founder. In my book nobody who is not working full time counts as a founder…
> If he's not joining the company to run the project, he shouldn't have any ownership. How would that work?
He wrote the damn thing. It is literally only right to compensate him for his work. And when you know going in that you can't compensate in cash, you're compensating in points.