I see this as an opportunity to step in and sell the idea of creating frontend for this tool, however I don't want to do anything for free. Since I don't work in this department directly, I don't know how I should approach this. Perhpas I should create MVP first and engage with some stakeholders and see if they are interested?
This contract was a win-win. My company got the features they wanted as part of my normal employment, but I also got to keep the idea and monetize it outside the company if I wanted to. The company didn't need to worry about licensing if I left since I granted a perpetual right to use/modify.
Unfortunately for various reasons the project never got completed and I never monotized it, so I can't tell you the real-world outcome, but I do know we were all happy with the terms going into it.
It can definitely be a win/win for the company as well as for an enterprising engineer. The general idea is simply to go outside the scope of your contract and do something the company didn't ask for, in exchange for a bit of money and the right to reuse whatever code you developed for them.
Avoiding works for hire contracts is how I built a 25 year war chest of reusable components and frameworks, each piece commissioned to an individual task but each used and modified in my next jobs for my next clients, until many versions later I would update my original clients with them.
My advice to OP is to always present your ideas to owners or managers with open ears, and explain how it will help the company. Secondly, never do the work for free. Thirdly, always retain your rights to your ideas and your code when you're working on something creative. If they have a problem with that you can also explain that it's unlikely anyone else will either fill this niche to save them money or that any competitor will ever actually know about or use what you will build for them, but that having it at your disposal is a way for you to continue increasing their efficiency (which is true). It's also a way to make them beholden to you at very little initial cost.
And if they think you developed it while employed, things could get nasty. Don’t want them thinking you’re selling their IP commercially either. Formalizing the idea while employed and then taking it outside could be trouble. Probably worth discussing details with a lawyer before attempting.
If you develop an MVP while employed and gain stakeholder acceptance, you likely won’t see any huge financial gains. Maybe a promotion, pat on the back, small bonus, or can enjoy the prospect this being more interesting work for a time.
Your employer is unlikely to appreciate your trying this.
> hence I learnt about that software
Your employer paid for the software, and you learned about in on their time. They pay you a salary to work for them. Its really that simple.
Best I can imagine working is for you to suggest you initiate a project to build in-house tooling as an employee, and maybe try to get a bonus or promotion out of a successful outcome. But its their decision, not yours.
I personally would still build it but sell that to another company
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I've gone through the exact scenarion in your question though, this is roughly the path I took (Estonia & EU, YMMV in other jurisdictions):
- start by going over your contract - is this overall even allowed? Some companies capture all IP you create 24/7, in this case you'll need to get the contract changed or get an exception
- even if your contract allows doing other work (creating separate IP) outside of company time, still ask for written permission from your manager and possibly a skip level or two. I got a written email from my VP of eng and CTO before proceeding.
- you will probably need to _completely_ separate your own work from the company work. This means using your personal laptop, never working on this during work hours, etc. Separating this sometimes can be hard, especially if you get something like a bug report from your employer - you can't work with it until you're off the clock.
- I also completely cut myself off from the purchasing decision - I let them know I was working on a project, gave them a landing page and let the purchasing team do a decision completely on their own
- if you hope to build a business out of this it's best to be upfront about it, e.g. by telling your manager that you might leave to focus on the business full-time if it takes off
All of this assumes you're on good terms with your employer overall.
To the best of my understanding, as an employee the IP of all work you produce is owned by the company. Even as a contractor you need rather specific contracts if your work for hire is not to be owned by the client.
My first reaction is to advise you to let the idea go. The most likely outcome is that you will do a huge amount of work and then get caught up in legal nightmares. Getting legal advice up front won't spare you from more drama down the track.
Assuming that there are many companies that use the same software and have similar needs, then you have the option of leaving, developing a MVP and then selling it to other companies first and eventually to your ex-employer. Even then there are risks of being accused of taking proprietary information to enrich yourself. Another scenario is that the big-name company could beat you to the market with a poorly designed but aggressively marketed alternative to your solution.
In the UK, if you develop it in your free time it's yours, as long as you don't use company equipment.
However! It can be a clause in your contract to say sompany owns IP developed in free time, and is enforceable. Sometime there's often an extra clause saying unless an exemption is approved by the board (I assume to stop hirers informally saying 'oh don't worry about that', being legally valid).
I have asked companies to remove that clause and had it removed.
In another company a friend of mine had a small side project that was making money when he joined, and that company were fine waiving the clause. But those were smaller companies who were reasonable, bigger companies might not wiggle.
I'm in the UK. My contract specifically says that anything I produce while employed for the company, even in my free time, is owned by the company. So is your claim that the contract is illegal/unenforceable?
So de facto they're not that wrong (contract law is law too)
It’s called ’salary’. Unless this type of thing is common in your company, it sounds weird.
Maybe float the idea to your boss that you would be willing to do something like that, if dep B starts expressing a need for it.
“You get: [these features]”
“I get: [money and the IP]”
“We measure success and payment milestones are triggered by: [Clear KPIs and deadlines]”
Make sure the 1-2 page doc has your name on it, and ask your boss for permission to drop a paper version on the desks of the higher ups.
You can be employed and enter into a separate contract.
Edit: I just re-read the original post and saw that the OP is a software engineer. Ignore everything I said. This sounds like a terrible idea. You’ll burn all your bridges if you pursue this avenue.
You’re not a slave. You can say no to your boss. You’re on equal footing (though your boss generally has more power/wealth so can bully/manipulate you). It’s up to your boss as to what they do when you say no. If you’re a good employee when it comes to your usual responsibilities, then they’ll keep you.
If your boss tells you to write software as part of your job and you’re not a software engineer, you can tell them to get stuffed (or sign the contract and both parties benefit!).
Edit: I just re-read the original post and saw that the OP is a software engineer. Ignore everything I said. This sounds like a terrible idea. You’ll burn all your bridges if you pursue this avenue.
The only way I would pursue this is if other companies have the same need, and you can sell the same thing to them too.
Unless the company bosses are behind this idea you will need to overcome both legal problems and selling problems. For example, instead of buying your product the execs could fire you and hire someone else to do this internally. I see only three ways you might wing it:
1. Talk to your execs (ideally, the CEO) directly and sell this. On failure, be prepared to work on this internally. If so, ask for more money/promotion, which may not work but will not hurt either.
2. Call the other company and offer to improve their product for more money/promotion.
3. Get a techie friend to front for you: he approaches your company, you do the work, he shares the money. That's really grey area (being charitable). My 2c.
I'm also lost on why you think this will make bank.
If it's a basic frontend and no one in your company cares, no one else will.
And you will run into 'conflict of interest ' very fast.
An 'idea' is not worth anything.
If it affects your daily work I would expect you to just do your job which might include making a frontend to make your job easier in company time. After all the company pays you for your expertise. If I would be your boss, I might even be offended by this way of thinking tbh
Some people don't realize that being an employee means having a basic incentives alignment with your employer. No one demands complete unconditional loyalty, but there should be some unwritten codes (regardless of what's written in your contract)
People who value their freedom should not be salaried employees. Start yr own business & do whatever u want. With caveats, in some jurisdictions employees are much better protected by law than businesses or self-employed consultants/contractors, & companies often ask the latter to sign more draconian contracts, NDAs, and non-competes (viewing them as potential competitors). U can always negotiate, but there are less scurpolous businesses & consultants who will sign any contract just to get the project/deal, & that's lowers the bar for everyone
He said he pretty much took their first offer as he didn't want to endanger his position at the company.
So sure, the surface levels answers are to talk to a lawyer, your manager, etc. But the deeper answer is to decide on and commit to a direction - are you happy being an employee, or do you need to walk out and start your own thing?
(And as a side note, don't build a startup that is a front-end to someone else's product. It may fill a need, but you are going to be spending all your hours keeping up with their changes, and ultimately your success is tied to their decisions and they could wipe you out just by spending a month improving their UX.)
The only option here is to offer your help with this during your working hours and have yourself reassigned to this basically. Trying to make $ on this will likely do more damage than it would do good.
You are an employee, they pay to do work for them making stuff.
My advice: put your time into some other project.
Honestly, chances are they just don’t care that much about this problem anyway.
It’s a distraction, forget it.
Sometimes simply asking this question is a red flag because you are suppose to develop for the company. They could give you three months time and have your current workload to somebody else while you deliver.
The thing to ask isn't how you can sell a frontend to your own company. It is how you could use this knowledge to show your skills and get a promotion, bonus, network or whatever you want to your advantage. That is why talking to your manager is important, assuming you trust your manager.
After that you’re ready to champion the sale internally, you pitch it as something a friend has set up that might help with X project. Your friend is the main point of contact and gets to keep a % margin through the LTD
Of course I would not bother with this unless it’s 6 figures a year, I know a guy that bootstrapped his startup this way when he was working for a large co
But the thing to remember is that the other stakeholders have decided that it's not worth the investment for them. It might've upset others in meeting, but that's a temporary thing.
Especially when this is new fandangled software, they're not willing to risk the development costs just to make some front end.
You must look at yourself as another stakeholder in this business. You could ask for extra resources to build a front end and get more responsibility, but that's only if you can argue that it's worth it to the company as a whole.
Most employment contracts have some sort of line along the line of "All work you do this property of the company" anyway.
Usually the only way you can do this, is by making something on the down low and selling it to competitors
I don't follow. That's your employer, no? Do they pay you a salary? So you are not working for free. Sounds like this kind of thing is part of your job. Maybe another dept. but it should be possible to work in another dept, part of the time. Talk to your manager, perhaps a manager in the other dept and if it makes sense for the business then this should work out.
If you want to do this on your weekends and then sell it, that doesn't sound healthy.
Either you fancy writing some code and pitching it to your employer, which seems like donating it with extra steps plus some lawyers, or you want to build something for the other department and the main challenge is persuading your boss that's a good idea.
Double check that you didn't promise not to do this in your employment contract.
Edit: actually, you would mainly focus on selling it
Better to try develop and somehow leverage it internally or leave and sell it back.
You very well might create something, turn around to sell it to them, and find out that your employer legally owns the copyright to the work even if you did it on your own time with your own resources.
Employment law is nuanced.
Tldr; bring your work contract and your idea to a meeting with an employment attorney and ask them who would own this work.
If it's something that's specific to your company and there is no market outside it, you have one customer that at the same time has strong leverage over you due to your current employment.
If it's something that could be generally useful, you likely still don't have a market: if your product ever became popular, the big-name company selling the original software could add it as a feature or paid extension and would have a huge marketing advantage over you.
The company you currently work for will likely not be willing to pay much for your work, and might take offense and fire you if you try to negotiate too hard. They could also decide that your new job is writing this thing...
You could try to leverage it for a bonus or promotion or something like that. That's unlikely to capture a significant amount of the value you provide, but so are the other options.
If you think the idea in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44080196 will fly, you could try that. I think it's unlikely to fly but it's the option that likely pays out best if it does fly, and if you approach it carefully ("this is outside the scope of my role and my department, but I could do it in my free time"), you might be able to pull it off with limited risk.
You also need to understand how decision processes work at your company and optimize your proposal for it. If it's more work to get legal to approve the contract with you than to get approval to pay 10x as much to the original vendor to add something half as good as a feature, the vendor gets the job.
Ceiling
- Company buys your software
- You sell it to other companies
- This becomes your full time job
Floor
- Fired
- Trust lost, future advancement blocked (not saying it’s right, just that it could happen)
Also important are how likely the outcomes are. Looking at the above and my own experience working at companies, having side projects, and selling them, I think you are much closer to the floor than the ceiling (in probability).
Here are some hard truths:
- Even if something is a win-win, many companies will not see it that way. They often react negatively to things they don’t understand or are uncommon.
- Depending on where you work it might be impossible to develop a side project without the company owning the IP (sometimes you can get a special waiver but not if it has overlap with what your company does)
- How capable are you of writing this software and are you really sure you have the problem/solution well understood? I don’t want to be rude but it sounds like you saw one presentation and think you can build and sell a solution that’s not spec’d out. I’m also not sure if your skill set, have you created software like this on your own before?
- Just because people are enthusiastic about the prospect of this tool doesn’t mean they are willing to pay for it (or will even still be interested 1 day, 1 week, 1 month from now)
- Developing software for a company (as an employee) and developing on your own are 2 different sets of skills. There is overlap, but it’s not the same
- Sales/Marketing and running a business are a completely different set of skills. It’s rare to have a developer who can also do this well. Not impossible, just rare.
- If you aren’t passionate about this then even if you are successful, you will not be happy. Employee? Work on whatever, no problem. Contractor? Work on whatever. Sole proprietor? Make sure it’s something you enjoy/care about. Maybe you do care about YAML file GUIs.
At a minimum I would wait 2-4 weeks and gauge interest in the tool again. See if people are still super interested or if it’s “Huh? Oh yeah, ehh, it was just something that would be cool but we wouldn’t pay for it”. It’s easy to get caught up in the moment, think everyone is as excited as you, then find out later they don’t care. Also use this time to see if the project still interests YOU.
If, after all of this, you still want to pursue this then make sure to check your employment contract and even if there is nothing about side-projects/IP get _written_ approval from your manager.
Lastly, ignore the people here suggesting you do anything “sneaky”, like the “I have a friend who is developing software that does this”. This is no way to live and those chickens will come home to roost. Either the company will catch you and/or you will be committing some kind of crime if you do obscure it.
In all honesty there is a _very_ low chance that this is worth pursuing. I know personally how easy it can be to get caught up in an idea like this but the chances of it working out are low. Maybe in a better world they would be higher but I’ve seen enough to assume that the company will respond _poorly_ even to a well reasoned and mutually advantageous offer. It sucks, but that’s just the reality of most places. Even if your company is not like this, it still might be better for you to just pitch working on it internally and leverage a bonus/raise/title.
If it’s really that valuable to that company, u may get a bonus, salary increase, options grant, or a promotion
Otherwise, choose an employment arrangement where u fully compensated for yr time (and materials). Either an hourly employee or a consultant/contractor who bills hourly
Even better an engagement where u keep all the IP, and may resell to other companies/customers, but judging from ur description that’s far from being the case
