DealForge autonomously sources, scores, and writes investment memos on venture deals. Stop manually hunting.
1,180+ deals tracked · 22 AI investment memos · Updated daily
[i will not promote] I built a $90K savings/month hardware+software system on my own time. My employer wants to lock down the code. Should I leave and start my own firm?
Built an embedded hardware + cloud pipeline on my own time. Nobody asked me to, I just knew we were overpaying vendors. MCU, some cloud glue. It's now deployed and saved \~$90K in a month. Now they want to **"guard the code."** Cool, but I want a promotion and IP clarity first. I have a recording of my lead confirming I built this independently, not sure how far that gets me legally. But they gave me a 3.5% rasie LOL. I can easily get a higher offer \~30% raise (recruiter called) and do basic work without sharing my IP. **Main fear:** they extract everything, document it, then low-ball or phase me out. Plus I know my current employer has neither the grit nor the innovative minds in leadership to get to where I am. Thinking about either walking and **commercializing it myself**, demanding a formal IP agreement before touching anything else, or lawyering up first. Not sure which. To be honest, starting a company on my own has been my dream, and I know this thing has a place inthe market. Edit: \- The entire system was tested on my own parts, tools, cloud and database serverless trials/subscriptions for prototyping. The deployment at my employer's was after minimal API modification to my personal project. \- I consider 10% of my personal work has been revealed to the employer, without the 90%, they would find it extremely hard to scale, and deploy this solution in other industrial settings.
The product demonstrates exceptional immediate ROI with a proven $90k/month savings, but the venture is currently hamstrung by severe legal risks regarding IP ownership. While the technical execution is strong, the adversarial relationship with the first 'customer' (the employer) creates a significant barrier to clean commercialization.