

Ask HN: Startup on the side - secretalias

A friend and I have been thinking about starting a company that will [insert awesome pitch here]. Problem is: I work for a megacorp (Moogle for the sake of argument (no, it's not Square Enix)). When I started I signed one of those nasty documents that gives them the rights to anything I produce that's related to their business. My question is how far should I go in my planning while still working? Should I just go ahead with my idea, build it, and deal with ownership issues later? Or should I refrain from putting anything at all in writing about my idea and keep my business plan in my head as long as I'm employed?
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pg
In practice the sticking point tends to be code. Someone at some point will
ask you whether any of your code was written while at your prev employer, and
you have to be able to say no. No one seems to ask about ideas, because that's
so much vaguer.

If you get an explicit carve-out for your side project, you're ok. Companies
vary about those. Google seems to be very accommodating, more suitish
companies less so.

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tezza
I found this from a previous HN story::

Your Specific Question ::
[http://www.startupcompanylawyer.com/2009/01/08/what-do-
you-n...](http://www.startupcompanylawyer.com/2009/01/08/what-do-you-need-to-
do-before-you-quit-your-job-to-form-a-startup-company/)

Overview :: [http://www.startupcompanylawyer.com/2007/04/26/whats-on-
this...](http://www.startupcompanylawyer.com/2007/04/26/whats-on-this-site/)

