[throwaway2016a]

A MVP does not take a couple hundred thousand dollars or years without pay. Many people here on HN have built apps and gotten traction in their free time.

The real trick is getting a job where your contract does not try to claim your employer owns things you make in your free time...

[mindcrime]

The real trick is getting a job where your contract does not try to claim your employer owns things you make in your free time...

Just work in a state where state law doesn't allow the "we own your brain" stuff. Those employment agreements don't trump applicable state law.

Of course there will always be a bit of subjectivity around the whole thing... as well all know, the law is always a bit non-deterministic until it reduces to a particular case, on a particular day, in front of a particular judge and jury, etc. But from a risk management standpoint, you can rely on some general truths most of the time.

For that matter, you could even go with "damn your employment agreement, do it anyway, and just don't tell anybody at $current_employer what you're doing, now or ever". Unless you say or do something to bring attention to yourself, it's probably fairly unlikely that they'll ever pay you any attention at all, especially if you don't "make it big" until after you quit.

[jonreem]

In California at least, regardless of what’s written in your employment contract, you own anything you produce on your own time and with your own equipment as long as it doesn’t directly relate to your employer’s business.

[jboggan]

It's difficult to get something started on the side when you work for Google for that reason.

[brucephillips]

Not really. Can you cite any instance of Google suing a company founded by ex-googlers that wasn't founded on the basis of the work those founders did at Google?

[Kelbit]

Has anyone ever been successfully pursued in court over that? You don't own employees when they're off the clock.