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Well, lessons != assets. I would say that if the founders create a new entity, and use assets from the old company in the new one, that it's reasonable for inve
by jmonegro 14y ago
Well, lessons != assets. I would say that if the founders create a new entity, and use assets from the old company in the new one, that it's reasonable for investors to claim a stake in the transferred assets/IP.
A good example of what usually happens with pivots is the case of Firebase (http://firebase.com http://firebase.com). They used to be Envolve (https://www.envolve.com https://www.envolve.com), but they saw demand for what they're doing now, and took the real-time technology behind Envolve to power Firebase.
I don't know if they kept the old company or set up a new one, but YC still has their stake in them.
- zio99 14y agoI guess for a startup, it would hard to track what was done on company time, and what was done as a side project. For example, coding a side project on my 9-5 job would require a consent form signed by my manager to claim they had no ownership on my project. But a startup founder working on the weekend on YC's project only to realize a need for something else that needed to be coded and monetized. That's gray area of who owns the assets.
- zio99 14y agoMy only concern is if Product A is failing, and you want to work on Product B, there would be a conflict of interest in killing Product A (there's people vested in), and it'll be hard to split your time to work on both products. There's the option to incorporate under the umbrella, but the fear of spreading yourself too thin. A dilemma nonetheless.