

Ask YC: Licensing your startup's code? - anonsellout

[I'm a Hacker News regular using a throwaway account for the sake of anonymity.]<p>Does anyone have experience with licensing the code behind their startups to other companies?<p>I have been approached by several people recently which have expressed an interest in some of the code behind my startup.  They haven't shown any interest in buying the company; only in getting the code (I guess because they think it would be cheaper/faster to buy rather than build).  Right now none of them are competitors, but they might become competitors in the future.<p>I keep on going back and forth between "any money is good money" and "if they're going to end up competing with us, anything we have that they don't have is good".  If anyone has experience with this sort of thing and can say how it turned out, it would be a great help.
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ismarc
It's not unheard of to have a moratorium based non-compete (specific
markets/market types) in the license. Include support/availability for new
features, etc. so they're likely to enjoy the license/throw more money your
way and I'd go for it. It'd really depend on how core to the business model
the software is. It'd be like anti-google, trying to start a business but end
up making a business out of licensing your software.

