
Ask HN: Sharing side project w Boss - mapster
I wrote some apps that improve workflow at work. I wrote these in my own time. How should I share these with my company? Should I ask for compensation at some point?
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ziddoap
First thing to verify would be your employment contract. I know of some which
specify that even if the IP was created on your own time, if it is directly
related to your job/company, it is the companies IP.

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mojomark
My company has a broad reaching IP ownership that covers absolutely anything I
think up or build, even in my own time and using my own equipment. However,
that's just boiler plate umbrella paperwork most company legal teams force
comanies to have in place for protection. I frequently develop IP and work
with start-ups, and earn extra income/equity on the side. You simply need to
request a waiver, on a case-by-case basis.

A lot of people say it's better to ask for forgiveness than for permission,
but to me that's an utterly weak stance and will only lead to stress now and
hassle down the road. For me, for each side project I determine could likely
be profitable in some way, I simply send my supervisor (division manager in my
case) an email stating as much about the effort as I can without disclosing
the actual magic sauce. If it's IP (rather than a extracurricular business
relationship), then I give them the opportunity to buy it outright or fund
development with profit share (they never take that option). I give them 2
week turn around. He runs it through legal, and they quickly assess it for
major conflicts of interest.

This works because leadership are rarely people so insecure that they want to
control every aspect of your life - if they are then you should probably go
work somewhere else. If you are a valued contributer, the last thing someone
wants to do is be responsible for losing a valuable employee simply because
they neglected to respect your work-life balance and personal growth. If they
do, then they are a poor manager, and that will be apparent to their peers and
superiors. This is harder at a very small company, because some (not all)
leaders are naively too inexperienced and insecure to be concerned about their
professional reputation. However, I've worked with great startup leaders who
respect my professional partitions.

Caveat: if you're working on something very directly related to the work
they're paying you to do as part of your contract (job description), then
that's a conflict of interest and they should own that IP you create outside
of normal operating hours. After all, put yourself in their shoes: you pay
someone $2000 a week to design and build an augmented reality application to
help grocery shoppers look up product information, then that person asks you
if they can sell an AR application they built in their own time to let people
find directions inside of a store. If it were me, I'd scratch my head and say:
"wait a minute, good idea but I'm paying you to design this grocery store app.
If you had such a great improvement, why didn't you bring it up so that we
could role it into the development plan. I'll take that, thank you."

I've never had my employer deny a waiver request. That includes patents
issued, payment and equity agreements with other companies. However, if they
ever did, depending on the potential value, I am always prepared to leave.

~~~
mapster
thank you. I should add that my role includes zero coding/dev and my workgroup
does our work without the benefit of APIs and apps. My apps greatly improve
the quality of service the group can provide.

~~~
mojomark
So, I actually missed a fairly important point above that may relate to your
case. While my company (that I've worked at for 18yrs) has never bought or
funded a project I requested a waiver for, in the past year they have begun
funding development of a directly work-related side project via Internal R&D.
This is a concept I've worked on here and there since undergrad. While I don't
have a profit share in place, and this project is extremely high risk-high
reward, I am excstatic to work on this under my current salary.

It's an amazing feeling to watch people get passionate about an idea you
created, but the reward to you can still be significant in terms of the
visibility/credit you'll get from leadership, which could well translate into
salary and position increase. Since adoption, I've had the ear and consult of
our talented leadership team, who have given me access to their powerful
professional networks to boost support for the project.

Again, put yourself in their shoes. If you were paying somebody a salary, and
they brought you an idea that they cultivated on their own time and with their
own resources, would you not view them as one of the most valuable member of
your staff, in awe that someone has that much pride in the mission of the
company to go that far above and beyond the call of duty, and do everything in
your power to not only pump the idea up, but also make sure the person is
comfortable and stays with the company rather than leaving to empower a
competitor.

Business is a very personal thing. Have confidence in yourself and what you
bring to the table, find great people to work with, keep pushing, and good
things will happen.

This is not your last great idea.

~~~
mapster
Very much appreciate your thoughts as it seems you have really walked this
path.

