jackfruit2

Thanks for the link as it was an awesome. Quite inspirational in fact.

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 company, you agree to the following:

1. You will promptly provide to said company, and otherwise keep confidential, full written details of all inventions, copyright works or designs originated, conceived, written or made by you, alone or with others (“Intellectual Property”), and work relating to Intellectual Property that you have worked on at any time during the course of your employment with said company which relate to, or are reasonably capable of being used in, the business of said company ("Employment IP"). Unless otherwise agreed in writing by the CEO, you are assigning said company absolutely all rights, title, benefits and interests in the Employment IP. The reason for this clause is to protect the Intellectual Property of the Company from infringement or misuse that may damage the position of said company in the market or our ability to serve our clients.

2. You hereby assign to said company with full title guarantee by way of assignment all present and future copyright, database and design rights and other proprietary rights (if any) for the full term of such rights throughout the world in respect of all Intellectual Property and you waive in favour of said company all moral rights conferred by Chapter 4 Part 1 of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 and all similar rights in other jurisdictions.

3. You irrevocably appoint said company as your attorney to execute any instrument and do any such thing for the purpose of giving to the Company the full benefit of clause 1.

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I could probably last 3 years or so with no other revenue streams. There is no rent or mortgage payments needed as I bought a cheap property that is now paid in full. That was part and parcel of the preparation for leaving fulltime employment, to give the startup / product development an attempt on my own and ensure that my runway could go further if needed.

I do have a lengthy notice period, but that is priced in. Also if this venture fails, I will re-enter the market as freelancer to pick up where I left off. Also forget asking the CEO about it or personal assistent, the're far to busy to be concerned with a "tin pot / pie in the sky" idea / product.

I just don't understand why founders, and those advocating for the startup life don't provide advise in this thorny area as it affects so many of us?

Do folks go dark, build in secret, pretending they had executed their plan outside of the course/term of their employment?

I have advised others is to perform research round their ideas by upskilling in areas that they'll need to prove out their ideas. This I hope will minimise the time to build (once departed) without establishing real intellectual property whilst employed. Perform spikes and mini experiements with the technology, without building the final idea and upon departure begin the actual build.

Wondering if folks consider that a sensible strategy or could iterate on it?

Keen on your thoughts.

Thanks for your response, which I found quite sensible. I think you are right in discussing with employer. I guess it could be overreach that should really be negotiated and fine tuned. I'll have a chat with them and see what they respond with.

I actually use JIRA with a Kanban board for my side project. Its working really well for my side project, integrating with bitbucket. I've done over 400 tickets so far.

Thanks guys for your responses. Some great discussion. I definitely need a lawyer or alternatively might just develop my idea in secret and leave on completion for clarity.

I have established a LLC before I was employed by another company. The company was fine with me having both a job with them plus running my LLC after checking with legal. The IP assignments clause was a little murky hence the original question.

I knew I should have requested a contract amendment but I was desperately trying to get a job at the start of the pandemic.

I wonder what happens during crunch?

For my application I'm thinking of serving the help online on my website. It's an opportunity to gain more traffic, thus another opportunity to sell more products.

Or maybe I could get a family member/friend to buy it and sell it back to me when i'm ready haha.

Ah ok thanks for your response. So if the actual product was realised after leaving the employer (or officially) that's what would be considered the IP, even if the product name was established whilst employed? My plan is to perform all the research around the periphery of my idea and start the actual build (based on several PoCs) when free of my obligation to my employer (i.e. have left).

I agree buying the domain name is little effort whilst it's available. Seeking the services of a domain broker is not so easy if the domain is squatted on by procrastinating.

1. Learnt a great deal of C++.

2. Started a serious side project (6 months every day apart from xmas day lol).

3. Paid off my mortgage.

4. Got promoted at work.

5. Started weight training again.

6. Paid off one my credit cards.