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Ask HN: Marketing and validating side project when already in a job?

5 points by ruppy ↗ HN
A friend and I are working on a project. We both have full time jobs at the same (large) company. The plan is that if the idea is validated and gets some traction, we will leave our jobs and work full time on it.

We are targeting enterprise market and I am struggling on how to market and validate the idea without letting our current employer know. We cannot even list our names on our web site. Same fear with reaching out to people we know but don't completely 'trust' or other random people in our target markets.

Am I overthinking it? Did anyone had a similar situation? How would you recommend we handle it?

5 comments

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andrewchambers
Why is your current company not allowed to know? Are you working on it during company hours? Does your contract forbid this?
karterk
IANAL

You should first talk to your HR about how your company treats side projects. In some companies, any work that you do automatically belongs to the company (even if the work is done during weekends). This also depends on your local laws. A large company should definitely have policies around this.

It's very hard to talk to your market in an anonymous fashion. Especially when you are just starting out. However, you can gauge some preliminary interest by setting up a good landing page and buying some targeted traffic from Facebook/Adwords. Describe what problem you are trying to solve, and have an email sign up form. Find out how many people sign up. Send follow up emails to these people. For this to work, your landing page has to be informative and should have a clear value proposition. You can have a great idea, but if you can't communicate that to your visitors within their first few seconds, then you're not going to be successful with this approach.

ruppy
No, we didn't sign non-competes and in any case, it is not a competing product. We work on it during nights and weekends. However, the culture around here isn't used to side-projects. If others at the company find out about our side-project, the assumption will be that we are doing it on company time. We are less worried about the legal implications but more cultural - especially if this doesn't take off and we end up staying.
jndsn402
Are you sure you didn't? Many companies have language like this buried in the employment agreement (mine does):

I agree to disclose and assign promptly, completely and in writing to the Firm any inventions, whether or not patentable, and including but not limited to, any innovations on processes, methodologies, software applications or products which I discover, conceive and/or develop, either individually or jointly with others, during the term of my employment with the Firm ("Inventions"). I understand that all inventions which I do hereby assign are and shall become the exclusive property of the Firm, whether or not patent applications are filed thereon, and I agree to treat such inventions as Firm proprietary and confidential information and to use such solely for the benefit of the Firm.