4 ms·

I found two useful solutions to this problem: 1. Work as a contractor, rather than full time. That gives you some flexibility in how much time to devote to you

I found two useful solutions to this problem: 1. Work as a contractor, rather than full time. That gives you some flexibility in how much time to devote to your side project as it grows. 2. Compete with a Yahoo! property and wait for them to do something stupid.

Silhouette 10y ago
Work as a contractor, rather than full time. That gives you some flexibility in how much time to devote to your side project as it grows. My upvote won't be visible to others, so I'm also posting to second the above explicitly. Working independently usually means you have more flexibility in both time and money than you typically get as a regular hours, salaried employee. You can balance how much contract work you take on against what you need to do for your side project. There may well still be a point where you have to give up a relatively large amount of immediate revenue from the (absence of) contract work in return for much less immediate extra revenue for your side business. However, if you think the side business will grow in the future based on that work, you might consider that a worthwhile investment. Another advantage is that operating independently also usually means you have a contract to work on one specific project. That contract would normally be explicit that things like the IP rights transferred to the client are only those relating to that specific project. In contrast, an employment contract is usually broader, and shady employers often try to include clauses that claim IP rights to pretty much anything the employee ever does, out of hours or otherwise. This is a legal minefield and the effect of those clauses depends on where you are, but in any case the last thing you need if your side project starts to become successful is a dispute with a past employer's lawyers.

4 ms·

I found two useful solutions to this problem: 1. Work as a contractor, rather than full time. That gives you some flexibility in how much time to devote to you

by idlewords 10y ago

Silhouette 10y ago
Work as a contractor, rather than full time. That gives you some flexibility in how much time to devote to your side project as it grows. My upvote won't be visible to others, so I'm also posting to second the above explicitly. Working independently usually means you have more flexibility in both time and money than you typically get as a regular hours, salaried employee. You can balance how much contract work you take on against what you need to do for your side project. There may well still be a point where you have to give up a relatively large amount of immediate revenue from the (absence of) contract work in return for much less immediate extra revenue for your side business. However, if you think the side business will grow in the future based on that work, you might consider that a worthwhile investment. Another advantage is that operating independently also usually means you have a contract to work on one specific project. That contract would normally be explicit that things like the IP rights transferred to the client are only those relating to that specific project. In contrast, an employment contract is usually broader, and shady employers often try to include clauses that claim IP rights to pretty much anything the employee ever does, out of hours or otherwise. This is a legal minefield and the effect of those clauses depends on where you are, but in any case the last thing you need if your side project starts to become successful is a dispute with a past employer's lawyers.