4 ms·

Spot on. As a web development company, we not only encourage it, but also fund and help develop employee side-projects. Bottom-line, if you hire passionate peop

by tomkin 14y ago

Spot on. As a web development company, we not only encourage it, but also fund and help develop employee side-projects. Bottom-line, if you hire passionate people, you should expect they'll want the same things you do as an employer (I.e. being able to steer you ship). Why fight this? I know this methodology doesn't quite work well for the likes of Apple and Google, but I think if more companies realized this inevitability, they could actually use it to their advantage and prevent a lot of drama.

Cogito 14y ago
Out of interest, how do you approach the legal aspects of funding/supporting side projects? In particular, what happens if one of those side-projects becomes insanely profitable? Do you just ignore it? Do you formally give your employees full rights to their work (which is part funded by you)? Do you have a formal agreement giving you a stake in their work?
- tomkin 14y ago
  We started out wanting to do a co-op, but after some legal woes we realized that wasn't going to be easy. This was our compromise. > In particular, what happens if one of those side-projects becomes insanely profitable? So far that hasn't happened. Much like the Y-Combinator model, we have a small stake in the company. If one of the projects became insanely profitable, we'd stand to benefit immensely. Just the involvement would likely generate all kinds of spinoffs (i.e. media coverage, etc) > Do you formally give your employees full rights to their work (which is part funded by you)? We try to stay away from owning or licensing code in general. We have a bit of a mantra here, we build ships, we don't sail them. In that regard, we'd rather benefit from the spinoff potential than the possibility of a windfall. > Do you have a formal agreement giving you a stake in their work? Yes, but not in perpetuity. We're interested mainly in fulfilling progressive ideas and seeing them through. After working in the biz long enough, you start to see a pattern among passionate people. They pour their heart into their craft - for someone else, and that works for many people, but for those who want something more, you lose an employee regardless - might as well benefit from it.

by tomkin 14y ago

Cogito 14y ago

Out of interest, how do you approach the legal aspects of funding/supporting side projects? In particular, what happens if one of those side-projects becomes insanely profitable? Do you just ignore it? Do you formally give your employees full rights to their work (which is part funded by you)? Do you have a formal agreement giving you a stake in their work?

tomkin 14y ago
We started out wanting to do a co-op, but after some legal woes we realized that wasn't going to be easy. This was our compromise. > In particular, what happens if one of those side-projects becomes insanely profitable? So far that hasn't happened. Much like the Y-Combinator model, we have a small stake in the company. If one of the projects became insanely profitable, we'd stand to benefit immensely. Just the involvement would likely generate all kinds of spinoffs (i.e. media coverage, etc) > Do you formally give your employees full rights to their work (which is part funded by you)? We try to stay away from owning or licensing code in general. We have a bit of a mantra here, we build ships, we don't sail them. In that regard, we'd rather benefit from the spinoff potential than the possibility of a windfall. > Do you have a formal agreement giving you a stake in their work? Yes, but not in perpetuity. We're interested mainly in fulfilling progressive ideas and seeing them through. After working in the biz long enough, you start to see a pattern among passionate people. They pour their heart into their craft - for someone else, and that works for many people, but for those who want something more, you lose an employee regardless - might as well benefit from it.