7 ms·

I have a list of concerns and questions as I am doing something similar. Would be interested to see what you make of it: What does your boss/supervisor think o

by SandB0x 13y ago

I have a list of concerns and questions as I am doing something similar. Would be interested to see what you make of it: What does your boss/supervisor think of your startup? How much do you talk about it at work? Are you worried that your full-time employer will think you're doing your work on their time? Are you worried that you may be technically doing your work on their computers (even by logging into Asana or a similar site)? How do you juggle meeting clients, contacts, mentors, other cofounders, with your day job? Not everyone can meet in the evenings and at weekends. How do you send urgent emails related to your startup in your day job? Will you consider leaving your current job/position to work full-time? Have you set yourself goals or conditions for going full-time (revenue/traction/funding/other?).

digitalengineer 13y ago
+1 That's what I thought I was going to read according to the title. In my country most guys can't even do anything else besides their dayjob because of their contract. (Doing something else in the 'open' that is).
plus- 13y ago
You don't have to tell your boss in the first place.
soneca 13y ago
Much more worthy set of questions. I quit my job a year ago, learn to code a little, build some projects, and for 3 months I've been a full-time founder. But now I have to pay the bills (and still no traction), so I will start a day-job. But before that, I founded a startup while at my last day-job. It was kind of unique, as my boss didn't have any problem at all with it, even allowing me to work on it during work hours (as long as I did my job, reach my goals). Well, what I think: - Talk as little as possible. Even if you have a very transparent, honest relationship with you boss. If your boss might find detrimental you to have a startup, don't talk at all. - Never use the company's computer to any kind of work on your startup. For emergencies (and you must really have a high treshold for emergencies) use your smartphone. But try to do everything out of work hour (before, after and during lunch). - If you have a day-job you won't have an ideal startup management. Accept it. So forget about mentors, you won't be the co-founder doing the fundraise with investors (if all the co-founders have day-job, there would be no fundraising at all). You will try to prove the concept, maybe some traction. Only when you quit you start fundraise (if you need it). Meeting with clients, only on lunch. Meeting with co-founder, only in the evenings and weekends (if your co-founders can't do it, than you have a deeper problem here). - Urgent emails only through smartphone. And be criterious about "urgency". - If you are founding a startup with a day-job you must have already decided that, at the first time possible, you will quit your job to work full-time. There is no "consideration", it must be inherent to found a startup. And about the criteria to do it, I think the best one is enough revenue or funding to pay your own salary. But set a reasonable goal for your salary, don't expect to make the same as your day-job, calculate your minimum life cost possible and that's it. Funding is good, but if all co-founders have day-jobs, it will be just a illusion, so don't consider it. If you start to manage better your risk-aversion, you may use the traction criteria. When you discover that you have a product people want, do some math with your reservers, calculate how many months you can go without income, if it is more than 6 months, go for it
- mooreds 13y ago
  Great advice, but: "- Talk as little as possible. Even if you have a very transparent, honest relationship with you boss. If your boss might find detrimental you to have a startup, don't talk at all." I think it is better to talk about the possibility of a startup on your own time during the interview process. This has the side effect of filtering out jobs with controlling bosses. (You may not have this luxury, though.) Our tech agreement lets someone list a set of technologies they own that they are bringing with them, and explicitly renounces the company's ownership of them. It's also useful to understand and review any agreements you sign when accepting employment. I have a side project that I told my boss about when accepting employment. And I started another one while employed. I guess it depends on whether you think forgiveness is better than permission, and how your boss is, but as a manager I would rather know someone has a startup project. You shouldn't consider a startup on the side without reading and understanding this onstartups.com q&a: http://answers.onstartups.com/questions/19422/if-im-working-at-a-company-do-they-have-intellectual-property-rights-to-the-st/20136#20136 http://answers.onstartups.com/questions/19422/if-im-working-... One other important point: if your startup is orthogonal to your current work, everyone is probably going to be more comfortable. If not, I'd seriously consider postponing the startup, just to avoid a sticky situation where your employer is concerned you took domain knowledge/contacts from your day job to improve your startup. All the rest of this advice is fantastic. A clear separation of startup and day job is important.
  - sailfast 13y ago
    Agreed on the communication side - on my end from an integrity perspective it was important to be completely up front about the situation. Also critical because of possible intellectual property concerns down the road. Note: This could cause problems including a "stop work" guideline from your employer, but I preferred to cause the problems up front so I could handle them effectively and keep things transparent.
  - alok-g 13y ago
    >> Our tech agreement lets someone list a set of technologies they own that they are bringing with them, and explicitly renounces the company's ownership of them. It's also useful to understand and review any agreements you sign when accepting employment. Totally. One thing to keep in mind though is that the exclusion applies only for work done before joining the company [1]. Even if you list something there, if you continue working on it, you may still have an issue. Further, all IP agreements I have come across, put a legal requirement on you to disclose any new IP you generate while employed to the employer within the prescribed time-limit even if you think if belongs to you. [1] In all cases I have come across. IANAL.
pc86 13y ago
Not the author but I've done something similar before, so here's what I can offer: > What does your boss/supervisor think of your startup? My boss had no reason to know, although she eventually found out through other means. It didn't affect my day job at all so it was a non-issue. I had no reason to bring it up and neither did she. > How much do you talk about it at work? Not at all. Work is for work. > Are you worried that your full-time employer will think you're doing your work on their time? They knew me well enough to know that I would never do that to them. > Are you worried that you may be technically doing your work on their computers (even by logging into Asana or a similar site)? Do not do anything on work hardware, ever. In many parts of the US this may actually entitle them to something (though IANAL and don't want to open that can of worms). Just don't do it. There's no reason to. Ideally, you wouldn't even do startup-related things on your personal hardware (e.g. phone) during work hours or while at work. > How do you juggle meeting clients, contacts, mentors, other cofounders, with your day job? The job I had when I was doing this had an owner who was a butts-in-the-office type (part of why I left). Because of this, the simple answer was "I didn't," unless it was over lunch. If the folks your meeting with know you're working full-time - they probably should - then they'll know you can't meet for coffee at 10 AM. Most of the time they will be impressed that you respect your employer enough not to use their time to build your business. The job I have now is not so stringent on time. I could go have coffee with someone at 10 AM if I had a really good reason (up to me to decide), and we all put in enough hours that nobody is counting how long you're away from the desk. > How do you send urgent emails related to your startup in your day job? As I said earlier, work is for work. It needs to be really bad to require attention from you when you're being paid by your employer to do what they want. I obviously can't answer the last point, but I'd like to leave you with one thought. It would be great if everyone had the time, ability, and means to bootstrap a business on the side while getting paid full time, but the unfortunate truth is that some people don't. You may have a job that required you to sign something prohibiting it explicitly. You may just have a job that is too close to your passion such that any business would be a competitor. Or, you may just have an asshole boss who makes you work 60-80 hours a week for a 2% raise and a $300 Christmas bonus.
- rst 13y ago
  FWIW, some folks may have employment contracts with $dayjob which give that company intellectual property claims on all technical work by employees whether done on or off the job. The extent of those claims obviously depends on the contract itself, and enforceability varies by jurisdiction. (California is better on this than most US States, but even there, employers with a will may have enough wiggle room to make trouble for an employee with a side project that's taking off.) So, if you're actually trying the "ignorance is bliss" strategy for managing $dayjob relation, then consulting a lawyer up front could save you an awful lot of trouble later.
startupjerkfest 13y ago
I am saddened that you even ask questions like this. The proper answer should be obvious. If you can't figure this out for yourself, you won't be able to tackle the much larger problems a startup brings :(

by SandB0x 13y ago

digitalengineer 13y ago

+1 That's what I thought I was going to read according to the title. In my country most guys can't even do anything else besides their dayjob because of their contract. (Doing something else in the 'open' that is).

plus- 13y ago

You don't have to tell your boss in the first place.

soneca 13y ago

Much more worthy set of questions. I quit my job a year ago, learn to code a little, build some projects, and for 3 months I've been a full-time founder. But now I have to pay the bills (and still no traction), so I will start a day-job. But before that, I founded a startup while at my last day-job. It was kind of unique, as my boss didn't have any problem at all with it, even allowing me to work on it during work hours (as long as I did my job, reach my goals). Well, what I think: - Talk as little as possible. Even if you have a very transparent, honest relationship with you boss. If your boss might find detrimental you to have a startup, don't talk at all. - Never use the company's computer to any kind of work on your startup. For emergencies (and you must really have a high treshold for emergencies) use your smartphone. But try to do everything out of work hour (before, after and during lunch). - If you have a day-job you won't have an ideal startup management. Accept it. So forget about mentors, you won't be the co-founder doing the fundraise with investors (if all the co-founders have day-job, there would be no fundraising at all). You will try to prove the concept, maybe some traction. Only when you quit you start fundraise (if you need it). Meeting with clients, only on lunch. Meeting with co-founder, only in the evenings and weekends (if your co-founders can't do it, than you have a deeper problem here). - Urgent emails only through smartphone. And be criterious about "urgency". - If you are founding a startup with a day-job you must have already decided that, at the first time possible, you will quit your job to work full-time. There is no "consideration", it must be inherent to found a startup. And about the criteria to do it, I think the best one is enough revenue or funding to pay your own salary. But set a reasonable goal for your salary, don't expect to make the same as your day-job, calculate your minimum life cost possible and that's it. Funding is good, but if all co-founders have day-jobs, it will be just a illusion, so don't consider it. If you start to manage better your risk-aversion, you may use the traction criteria. When you discover that you have a product people want, do some math with your reservers, calculate how many months you can go without income, if it is more than 6 months, go for it

mooreds 13y ago
Great advice, but: "- Talk as little as possible. Even if you have a very transparent, honest relationship with you boss. If your boss might find detrimental you to have a startup, don't talk at all." I think it is better to talk about the possibility of a startup on your own time during the interview process. This has the side effect of filtering out jobs with controlling bosses. (You may not have this luxury, though.) Our tech agreement lets someone list a set of technologies they own that they are bringing with them, and explicitly renounces the company's ownership of them. It's also useful to understand and review any agreements you sign when accepting employment. I have a side project that I told my boss about when accepting employment. And I started another one while employed. I guess it depends on whether you think forgiveness is better than permission, and how your boss is, but as a manager I would rather know someone has a startup project. You shouldn't consider a startup on the side without reading and understanding this onstartups.com q&a: http://answers.onstartups.com/questions/19422/if-im-working-at-a-company-do-they-have-intellectual-property-rights-to-the-st/20136#20136 http://answers.onstartups.com/questions/19422/if-im-working-... One other important point: if your startup is orthogonal to your current work, everyone is probably going to be more comfortable. If not, I'd seriously consider postponing the startup, just to avoid a sticky situation where your employer is concerned you took domain knowledge/contacts from your day job to improve your startup. All the rest of this advice is fantastic. A clear separation of startup and day job is important.
- sailfast 13y ago
  Agreed on the communication side - on my end from an integrity perspective it was important to be completely up front about the situation. Also critical because of possible intellectual property concerns down the road. Note: This could cause problems including a "stop work" guideline from your employer, but I preferred to cause the problems up front so I could handle them effectively and keep things transparent.
- alok-g 13y ago
  >> Our tech agreement lets someone list a set of technologies they own that they are bringing with them, and explicitly renounces the company's ownership of them. It's also useful to understand and review any agreements you sign when accepting employment. Totally. One thing to keep in mind though is that the exclusion applies only for work done before joining the company [1]. Even if you list something there, if you continue working on it, you may still have an issue. Further, all IP agreements I have come across, put a legal requirement on you to disclose any new IP you generate while employed to the employer within the prescribed time-limit even if you think if belongs to you. [1] In all cases I have come across. IANAL.

pc86 13y ago

Not the author but I've done something similar before, so here's what I can offer: > What does your boss/supervisor think of your startup? My boss had no reason to know, although she eventually found out through other means. It didn't affect my day job at all so it was a non-issue. I had no reason to bring it up and neither did she. > How much do you talk about it at work? Not at all. Work is for work. > Are you worried that your full-time employer will think you're doing your work on their time? They knew me well enough to know that I would never do that to them. > Are you worried that you may be technically doing your work on their computers (even by logging into Asana or a similar site)? Do not do anything on work hardware, ever. In many parts of the US this may actually entitle them to something (though IANAL and don't want to open that can of worms). Just don't do it. There's no reason to. Ideally, you wouldn't even do startup-related things on your personal hardware (e.g. phone) during work hours or while at work. > How do you juggle meeting clients, contacts, mentors, other cofounders, with your day job? The job I had when I was doing this had an owner who was a butts-in-the-office type (part of why I left). Because of this, the simple answer was "I didn't," unless it was over lunch. If the folks your meeting with know you're working full-time - they probably should - then they'll know you can't meet for coffee at 10 AM. Most of the time they will be impressed that you respect your employer enough not to use their time to build your business. The job I have now is not so stringent on time. I could go have coffee with someone at 10 AM if I had a really good reason (up to me to decide), and we all put in enough hours that nobody is counting how long you're away from the desk. > How do you send urgent emails related to your startup in your day job? As I said earlier, work is for work. It needs to be really bad to require attention from you when you're being paid by your employer to do what they want. I obviously can't answer the last point, but I'd like to leave you with one thought. It would be great if everyone had the time, ability, and means to bootstrap a business on the side while getting paid full time, but the unfortunate truth is that some people don't. You may have a job that required you to sign something prohibiting it explicitly. You may just have a job that is too close to your passion such that any business would be a competitor. Or, you may just have an asshole boss who makes you work 60-80 hours a week for a 2% raise and a $300 Christmas bonus.

rst 13y ago
FWIW, some folks may have employment contracts with $dayjob which give that company intellectual property claims on all technical work by employees whether done on or off the job. The extent of those claims obviously depends on the contract itself, and enforceability varies by jurisdiction. (California is better on this than most US States, but even there, employers with a will may have enough wiggle room to make trouble for an employee with a side project that's taking off.) So, if you're actually trying the "ignorance is bliss" strategy for managing $dayjob relation, then consulting a lawyer up front could save you an awful lot of trouble later.

startupjerkfest 13y ago

I am saddened that you even ask questions like this. The proper answer should be obvious. If you can't figure this out for yourself, you won't be able to tackle the much larger problems a startup brings :(