Entrepreneur

0 readers

1 users here now

Rules

No Personal Attacks - criticism of ideas is allowed, attacking people is not.
Self Posts Only - links can only provide supplementary material. Your post must contain enough content to have a discussion.
No “How To Get Rich Quick” posts - This community is not about making a quick buck. Posts asking the community how to make $X, without making specific reference to a reasonable idea, are not tolerated.
Avoid unprofessional communication - Please treat fellow entrepreneurs like respected coworkers, label conversations if NSFW and avoid deliberate provocations.

Please feel free to provide evidence-based best practices, share a micro-victory, discuss strategy and concepts with a frame work, ask for feedback, and create professional conversation. Treat every post as if you're at work and representing the best version of yourself.

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

communick@indiehackers.space

I want to try selling something I've made but my employer may 'own' it (alien.top)

submitted 11 months ago by crediblezephyre@alien.top to c/entrepreneur@indiehackers.space

48 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Over the last few months, I've spent a fair amount of time building a tool that I'm reasonably certain I can sell (nothing novel, don't get too excited) and I would really like to try. I know there is a customer base and I know it's useful... because I built it to use myself. But I also plan to use it at work, that's half the reason I built it. In fact, most of the company templates are just mine that I brought with me when I was hired.

While 90% of the time I spent building it was in the evenings, on my 'own' time... perhaps 10% of it was 'company' time where I had free time and spent it building this tool.

I'm 90% certain that my employee contract states any 'inventions' created are owned by the company, which is pretty standard in my industry. So I have a few questions:

Does my employer own this tool? (I know you aren't lawyers, but maybe someone has insight?)
What is the risk of selling it anyway? What happens if I sell it and use it at work?
How do I find a clear path forward (without hiring a lawyer. This is practically hobby-tier, I don't want to take it that far)

Posting from alt account because I'm paranoid and want to retain anonymity JIC

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] juggerjaxen@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago (5 children)

Does your employer even know you built that tool? I mean, you did it in 10% of your company time, but did you show him anything? Is your employer big? Is this software going to be so big that the sale is noteworthy? I mean, if we are talking about a sale of 5k, nobody's going to care. If you're going to sell this thing for a million, of course they're going to care, unless your company is so huge that they actually don't care. But then, how would they find out? Why would they care? Are they even interested in the software? Could you give me some more details?

[–] Personpersonoerson@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago (4 children)

How would they even know OP is selling the tool, OP can easily disguise himself behind a shell company and a sales guy. This post is so stupid, I cannot believe people are this naive.

[–] CSCAnalytics@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

So use a shell company to commit IP fraud. That’s some great advice you’re giving to this person. Surely this can’t end badly.

[–] Personpersonoerson@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Not IP fraud if he did it on his own time.

[–] CSCAnalytics@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Okay, but that’s not what the post said?

[–] Personpersonoerson@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago

He said he used 10% of company time, nobody can prove he did that though, so he might claim he didn’t use company time at all

load more comments (2 replies)