Ask HN: Conflict of Interest while freelancing

It might be possible to avoid future problems by having a contract where you disclose that you are working in the same space as the startup and that you will not use your code in their product, nor their code in your product. It is of course, difficult to prove that down the track.

If I was in your situation, I would decline the work. 10-16 hours doesn't generate enough revenue to pay for lawyers in the future.

You could always put an escape clause into your agreement that indemnifies any and all of your projects if the alliance fails to take off financially.

The only reason I suggest this is because you're actively considering doing the work for money, suggesting that your own project is underfunded (and less financially urgent than doing the work of others). They can obviously help you with this problem if they're offering to pay you.

A lot of deals are better than 100% of nothing.

This kind of thing happens all the time. People who are experts in a field get hired by competitors in the same field.

How would you feel if you hired a freelancer to work on your product and then shortly after they launched a similar product?

1. Make what you're working on explicit and transparent in the contract you draw up with that startup. This has to be made / checked by lawyer in order to avoid any ambiguity.

2. Don't work for the startup.

If option #1 is worth it depends on how much profit you expect to make from the contract.

Don't work for them, don't have them send you anything remotely technical (specifications, code, documentation).