Business idea interest- but full time employed! Help!

[casperthefriendlyghoster]

Hi there,

I moved to my 'ideal' job 9 miles from home, great pay and the role I had always coveted about 7 months ago.

I am very happy there, it is at a fairly senior level (reporting to Managing Director) so has it's stressful days but I do love what I do.

I also have a passionate interest in a completely unrelated area and they are aware of this and that this is my hobby.

As part of my hobby I have come up with a concept/ invention that links back to this subject. Having worked on it in the evenings I speculatively sent a proposal over to the market leader in that industry (expecting to be told to b*^^ger off) and to my surprise they are extremely interested and I have a call with the CEO tomorrow on my day off.

The company interested know I am happily employed and know what my role is. I have a feeling they're going to ask me tomorrow what I want from this- the answer is I genuinely don't know, I just had a good idea!

For context, I earn a good living but have a lot of debt from doing up our house so would be delighted at the opportunity for any increase in income. Do I sell them the idea and walk away, try and do 3 days in current role/ 2 consulting on this project if my work will agree a compromise?

Again for context if this concept acquired just 1% market share its annual revenue generated would be in excess of £3 million.

I am worried about this call tomorrow because although it's the opportunity of a life time I didn't expect to be in this situation, please help!

Also I don't know whether I need to take legal advice on protecting/ selling my idea.

Is it something you could license rather than sell to them? So you get a fraction of any future profits?

That's a good suggestion! I didn't know whether in an ideal world I'd be able to 'sell' them the idea then retaining a percentage share of the creation. I'm completely new to this and just had an idea in bed one morning in my pyjamas! 😂

You will almost certainly need legal advice. You may do well to post in business forums as they will have a greater understanding of the issues involved but with the money you’re discussing, you really need to be clear what your expectations are from the outset.

Thanks for the tip- admin could you possibly move to the business forum?

Bump!

You also need to see what your current employment contract says about Intellectual property and second jobs/ moonlighting. Hopefully it will only cover IP arising out of your work but be very careful your job does not have any interest in your idea.