Can I get screwed by my boss for coming up with an idea?

**StartingSomething** · 04-30-2011 04:17 PM

So I work for a company, which shall not be named, but its going to go under pretty soon, for an unnamed reason.. But it seems like the owner is looking for another way to make just as much money. The company made over a billion dollars in just 4 years, and now its getting shut down, the two owners are filthy rich.

A co-worker and I came up with an idea for a business, its a truly original idea, though it would take a lot of money to start (Im not talking millions, maybe like $100k or so), we dont have the capital to do it alone.

We were thinking about talking to the owner of our company, basically say.. heres our idea, heres how it will make money... can you finance this.

My scares are as below..

1) he will say no he wont, then he will take the idea and do it himself
2) he will say yes, but make it an extended entity of the company he owns now, hence we will still be working for him, and he can strong arm us out of it
3) he will use some legal approach to say that since we were working for him at the time, he has full rights to whatever we did (according to a co-worker, if we came up with it while on the clock, its not ours, whatever)
4) he will put someone else in charge, and we wont get to work on it, or get the correct profit split.

What do you guys think? The company we work for got filthy rich for being rather unethical, so I wouldn't be too surprised if somehow I got screwed out of this deal

Any advice would be great

**JRRoss** · 04-30-2011 05:40 PM

I've never been in this situation before, but If I were you and wanted to go through with this I would hire an attorney and enter into some sort of agreement.

What did this company do to make billions btw?

**StartingSomething** · 04-30-2011 06:41 PM

I would bet that the owner is on here, so I dont think I should say.... lol

**JRRoss** · 04-30-2011 06:46 PM

LOL better watch out. But again you should really have some sort of legal agreement in place so that there is proof that you and your boss agreed to keep the idea between yourselves. That way he won't svrew you over and take credit for your idea or give the idea away.

**Milkerz** · 05-13-2011 09:15 AM

Don't ask someone you don't trust.

Luke

**iPAS** · 05-14-2011 11:56 PM

Get things legaly documented as being your idea. you can get a copywrite for the idea. otherwise no, dont go to someone who has the money to take and implement your idea as their own.