4 ms·

If the company has full-time employees (ie, it’s big enough to pay salaries) and is already considering building it, the “I’ll save them money building it” valu

If the company has full-time employees (ie, it’s big enough to pay salaries) and is already considering building it, the “I’ll save them money building it” value proposition doesn’t seem very compelling. If you’re really committed to this, convince them you’ll run and grow it bigger than they would internally - probably by being able to raise outside capital for it with them as a significant shareholder (alongside the VCs and you and this PM as founders). Tie your compensation to success - which means equity, not salary (at least until you’ve raised new capital). Get the PM onboard. I think the odds of that working are still low, but “You have a shot at owning 30% of something valued at, and exiting for, millions” is at least interesting and would be hard to execute internally.

throwaway12983 6y ago
You're probably right about the money saving value proposition... the flexibility to customize the service in-house may outweigh cost savings. I'm not really sure how convincing them I will grow this to something big is relevant. It's a very niche service that isn't something my employer would be interested in making money off of. They do not intend to sell the tool they are thinking about building in house. I am financially independent and would like to bootstrap this business, so I have no interest in bringing in VCs. Even if I did, it's such a niche problem that no VC would be interested, unless I sold the problem as a gateway into a much bigger and more profitable domain. I don't really have any interest in this though.