Startups How likely am I to be sued by my current employer for developing an app? |
- How likely am I to be sued by my current employer for developing an app?
- How do I know what to focus on?/How do I know what to do?
- How to create an effective strategy for 2022?
- Should I re-form my company?
- I think I have a million dollar idea for a startup. But how do I really know? Is it required to spend tons of time and money doing Market Research?
- Legal implications of a potential cofounder who wants to continue working at their current company
- Getting through the lows
| How likely am I to be sued by my current employer for developing an app? Posted: 14 Dec 2021 05:22 AM PST I am building an app that is completely unrelated to the business purpose of my dayjob. Only reasonable connection I can possibly draw is that my app's backend is written in python and mysql which are languages that I use at my dayjob...and also largely learned at my dayjob. I'm afraid that my boss may sue me for spending so much time on it. I never worked on it at work...I have talked about it at work with coworkers...but never worked on it there. I don't think anyone could argue that my work ethic at work has declined substantially. Am I overcautious? How do I prevent my boss from suing me? [link] [comments] |
| How do I know what to focus on?/How do I know what to do? Posted: 13 Dec 2021 07:37 PM PST I've been building an app for a while. It's almost done. It's basically a mental health app. I built it because I thought it wound be simple to build, a good way to learn and that I could build something better than what was out there and make most of the stuff free. (Although there will be a couple of paid features) I don't think I'll make a lot of money doing it. I also have an idea for something else. A reading utility app. I think this could be much better as a business. I want to build this as well. I'm wondering which I should focus on? How do I deal with this situation? Thank you for any insights you can provide. (: [link] [comments] |
| How to create an effective strategy for 2022? Posted: 14 Dec 2021 06:59 AM PST Hi fellow startuppers! I am a fellow startup cofounder, working on a software product. My cofounders and I wanted to sit down and plan the strategy for 2022 for our startup, but realised that we didn't really know how to do this effectively. We thought of breaking the problem down into the main sectors (Marketing, Product Development, Human Resources, Funding etc.) and working on the goals for each one. How do you do an effective strategy plan for your company? The resources I found online were quite general and abstract, so I thought maybe here I could see some more practical and "hands-on" advice. A piece of advice that I liked is that the goals you set should be SMART. What are your tips and tricks for coming up with a good yearly strategy? [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 14 Dec 2021 10:19 AM PST When I was a senior in college I had an idea for a startup. I had formed the company(rather cheaply thankfully) however I wound up not really going through with it for a few reasons and I decided to work for a few years while doing occassional work on the product of the company. During the past like 6 months I've really worked to create the product and develop it and I have a solid MVP. I also worked on gaining a lot of knowledge in finance and built up some capital, and I'm ready to go on that point. It's been about 4 years since I created the company initially. I wanted to know since I'm serious about going for seed/series A funding, if I should re-form the company or not? Because if we're being honest it's been there for 4 years collecting dust more or less. Will the investors be ok with the fact that I sort of dropped it for a bit and then came back to it seriously? Or would you recommend reforming the company under a new name? Obviously the costs of re-forming now at a relatively early stage are probably cheaper than having to do it emergently if an investor is interested. On the other hand that will probably make the enterprise look very young(i.e. infantile lol) and that could also hurt my prospects of finding an investor, no? Keep in mind this is in biotech, highly research-intensive area that is capital-intensive to produce a "real" product. Thanks for the help :) [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 14 Dec 2021 07:15 AM PST Also, I'm guessing I may need to divulge the details of my idea. That or pay for a provisional patent. Otherwise someone could just steal my idea, right? I did 100 tests without my idea/product - the baseline I think it's called and of course ended with 0% of 100 as the result, (I explained that weirdly but I think you know what I mean) but when I implemented my idea, 85% out of 100 tested resulted in the desired outcome. Which was way higher than I expected. Originally my idea was just going to be for me, but it worked so well, I thought this is a million dollar idea that I know people would be interested in. I've actually kept an ongoing list of what I think are million dollar ideas for about 20 years now, which has around 50 or so ideas which I've never executed on - but out of all of them, I think this one has the most potential. For many reasons, but one of them in particular is months later, after adding it to the list, I just can't stop thinking about it, and coming back to it. This has never happened to me on any of my other 50 ideas over the course of 20 years. This is how I know this is the one. So besides the small amount of market research I did on my own, I just have this feeling I can't explain other than it checks all the boxes in that I know many people will be interested in it. Around 30% of the US population use or do this, and it's a major enhancement I'm sure many people would be interested in. So I guess I've done my own little market research and kind of answered my own question there, but how do you really validate if an idea is worthy of pursuing? If it is determined to be viable and pursuing, and something that could theoretically explode overnight, who do I turn to, or what is the 1st/next step? Do I need a business partner or firm? Should I create a pitch deck? Someone to help me get the idea off the ground? Venture capitalists? Are they necessary? I do feel like I need a Mentor. I feel like I want to call that one company that's on TV commercials I'm not sure if I I'm allowed to say the name but it's an invention helping firm. After researching this particular company, I learned they say yes to every idea submitted and it costs around $10,000 but they're only interested in getting your money not really in helping you get your idea for your product or company or business or startup off the ground. [link] [comments] |
| Legal implications of a potential cofounder who wants to continue working at their current company Posted: 13 Dec 2021 10:03 PM PST I have a potential cofounder who seems to be a good fit on most fronts. They want to work part time and remain employed at their current company until we raise enough capital for them to draw a nominal salary. While I understand and appreciate their financial obligations, I am concerned about the "no moonlighting" clause they might have on their current employment contract. Although they have assured me that they do not have any such clause in their agreement with their current company, I worry that they might have missed something. Since they are an EVP at the company that they are currently employed with, I am having serious doubts about the validity of this claim that they are free to work anywhere they want while being a part of the executive team of their current company. Apart from asking them to send me their current contract/agreement, is there any other way to ensure that I don't ensnare myself in any future legal implications of having a cofounder work at my company while being employed elsewhere? Perhaps a clause on the Founders agreement that might provide some protection for my company and prevent any claims on my company and its IP? Appreciate any advice or suggestions on how to handle this. [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 12 Dec 2021 08:24 PM PST Trying to get through a low point Not looking for anything specific just wanted to share my story and see what people think. For the past 6 years I worked at a bootstrapped startup as the sole services engineer implementing our product for clients. Prior to my arrival, development on the product was funded by consulting services that were completely unrelated to the product (basically a different business). Unfortunately those consulting services were all based around one company and when they hit a rough patch that safety net died. Afterwards the company dwindled until it was just me, the guy in charge of platform dev and the founder who was doing sales. We still continued to survive and live off proceeds from the product and associated services but selling has never been easy. We acquired a really great client in 2018 and started implementing a rollout across their company, the first such implementation of that scale. Then covid... during 2019 the founder retired and due to the lack of funds from our client's not being able to pay their bills I had to go get another full time job to pay my bills and the plan was for me to consult for the company on the side. By the end of 2019 with some more events transpiring I ended up as the CEO and majority shareholder of the company. My first move was to fire the head of platform dev as I don't think he invested the money wisely into the platform and didn't grow it to where it should have been by now. I kept the guy under him (who was actually doing all the work) and started to rebuild the company from there. In that time I hired and trained 3 younger engineers though 1 didn't work out. I chose to pay everyone else over myself and keep my full time job. Its now been a year with me climbing a ridiculous learning curve of how hard it is to be in charge of running a small business from legal to finance to training younger folks and still trying to keep clients happy. We did manage to gain another client and implement successfully but I have done 0 sales in the past year. I'm now at the point where I have a team again and need to get back into sales but I'm burnt and feel like I want to get my life back. I'm not going to because we still have clients that want to do more work with us and I haven't given sales a chance at all yet. I know I have to persevere... I just wish I could play a video game and not feel guilty for not working. Anyways just felt like ranting I guess. Curious to see what others think. [link] [comments] |
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