3 ms·
Your wording is very vague but I'm going to assume when you say 'your firm wants your home-project', you mean they want to buy it, rather than they are demandin
by dotBen 15y ago
Your wording is very vague but I'm going to assume when you say 'your firm wants your home-project', you mean they want to buy it, rather than they are demanding you hand it over under some kind of IP rights squabble.
Do you want cash and/or stock for the sale? Or, do you want a %age of future royalties of the sale (that might tricky if they want to incorporate it into a bigger product). (Or a combination of both cash/stock and %age)
Do you want to remain involved in the project, or even moved into the team that would continue to work on this? If so you should get that contractually agreed as part of the sale.
How much do you feel the project is work, and separately, how much has the company indicated they are willing to spend? If it is more than, say, $20k I would go and see a lawyer to draw up the contractual issues. Less then $20k, you can probably do this on your own given the amount is small. You could also incentivize the lawyer to negotiate on your behalf in return for a %age of the sale - particularly worthwhile if you are not a good negotiator. It's also a 3rd party, so none of the mind games that could be used against you by negotiating with your own boss/boss's boss/etc comes into play.
You might be wise to incorporate the project into a company, transfer the IP to the company and then sell them the company.
You should also review your code to make sure you are not using any OS code that has an incompatible license with selling the code.
Perhaps you could provide more answers and people could advise you better.
- undefinable 15y agoI am in the initial stages of the talks. The manager has mentioned about money being involved, I was looking for a "%age of future royalties of the sale" kinda thing. Yes the product can be of more than $20K as per me.
- ridruejo 15y agoHaving faced a similar dilemma in the past back when I was an student, the advice I got was that any kind of royalty-based agreement could easily get me screwed depending on how it was structured (and the company likely has more experience than you do on drafting such agreements). For example if the royalty is based on number of licenses sold, they can just give it away for free to customers and charge them a "maintenance fee", so you would get $0. You get the idea.
- staunch 15y agoAnother huge issue is just accounting. You need to be able to check the books or they can just choose to pay you whatever they want. A simple cash deal is probably something you can do yourself, or with very little assistance. Anything more complicated requires an experienced attorney.
- ra 15y agoYes. Something like x dollars per customer per year would be slightly less optimised but more robust and defensible. Don't forget that by providing you with sales / revenue / customer management they are bringing a lot of value to the table. Who will develop the product ongoingly? Who will provide patches and support? These might seem like obvious questions to you but they must be discussed and written in a contract. Finally, make sure your contract includes sufficient legal protection. i.e. the product has no guarantees and you are not liable for any cost, damages or loss, direct or indirect. If things go ahead then you definitely need a lawyer to help you with this.