Registering a business isn't too hard to DIY, depending on where you live. I'm assuming the US so it's then highly dependent on state. In Massachusetts it's pretty expensive comparatively and costs $500/year for an LLC. It's much cheaper in other states and there are ways to incorporate in a cheaper state even if you don't live there.

As far as the NDA/NCA I'm not a lawyer, I'm just a professional software engineer and computer scientist but I personally wouldn't do it myself. A lawyer would probably do it for a few hundred bucks or less though. Shop around.



And then read this.

As far as finding a developer goes: Are you offering equity (if so, how much? what percentage?) or are you willing to pay wages or a combination of both? It's going to be very difficult to find someone competent and trustworthy that will work on equity alone. Programmers have bills and living expenses too. Ditto for just wages, if you aren't willing to pay an excellent wage the kind of programmers you get will be the bottom of the barrel. You may want to try some equity + an hourly rate that complements that equity.

Just remember one thing, and I mean this respectfully: Ideas are worth nothing. Idea guys are a dime a dozen. What is worth something is an implementation of that idea, which you don't have the skills to follow through with as you aren't a programmer. Don't undervalue the programming aspect of this, as it's going to be 80+% of the effort.

Another good thing to do is for you to learn how to program. You could throw together a prototype of your idea and use it as a pitch when finding a partner. That way all the work wont be 100% on your partner and you can get more done by being directly involved in the implementation. There are very few big web projects out there started by "idea guys", they were mostly programmers with business sense and an idea that cut out on their own.

Thanks for the link.



Yeah, I realize ideas are fairly common. I'm very business oriented and I've worked all the logistics of how the website should be run to be both profitable and useful, and provide links to model websites to use as a 'guide' for certain sections of the website in addition to having physically drawn out on paper an outline of the concept.

Thanks again for the replies, all constructive criticism is welcomed. I'm a realist, not an optimist.

NDA/NCA, if you know someone with any experience in business/economics they can put one together. Llc isn't required but is preferred

In the long run it would 100% be established as a business of some sort as you don't want to be crushed personally if something goes wrong for whatever reason.

Looked up a few basic NDA formats. Shouldn't be too hard to draft one if necessary.

This. If something goes tits up and your partner/employee sues you not having an LLC will allow them to go after your personal assets. Also if you are going to be paying someone not under the table I'm pretty sure it's almost required in this case.

Just my two cents, btw my job is a User Experience Designer at a funded startup with a reasonable userbase(1.6m), but I also code/markup a respectable amount (Obj C, js, HTML/css, arduino).

I'm working on starting a couple of side companies, and it's taken me YEARS to find really good people to work with, people that don't hopscotch between ideas & codebases, people that can implement an idea with the users intent in mind.

TBH "Ideas Guy" is most valuable as a "Business Guy" or "Sales Guy", as he's not grounded by technical stuff and can sell the idea & not the implementation, he can be the B2B bridge, but make sure he can bear the weight.

Hire a good lawyer to write your NDA, Contracts, etc...Most lawyers will give you 15-30mins free, treat it like a job interview, ask about their experience in digital products, make sure they know what they're doing.

Make sure you accommodate things that go wrong in the contracting process, if you're working remotely, you want to cover them disappearing into thin air (or thin wifi ;)).

Make sure you're codebase is hosted somewhere accessible; make a github or bitbucket account and have them contribute through that, that way if you lose them, you've got the code.

Thanks for the reply. I'm definitely the business minded 'idea guy'. I'm slowly learning code, however in addition to 17 upper level credits at a top 10 uni it's tough for me to a) Complete my schoolwork, develop business concepts/ideas, c) learn to code the idea, and d) code the idea, e) earn enough capital to pay someone to do the job (bar giving them equity).

I'm thinking about posting 'flyers' around my campus stating I'm looking for a business minded cs major/coder/web dev (hopefully junior/senior) to potentially work with on the concept. I would handle all the business logistics + networking, marketing, and concepts while they would code it and make it a realization splitting equity in a fair way somehow. I might even be able to snag someone that could use it for a project of some sort and pay them a bit in the process. 'Kill 2 birds with 1 stone' of sorts.

Again thanks for the input.

at georgia tech, if you write code for anything school related, the school owns the code and any app that comes from it. you will need to petition someone to own the rights if you intend to make money off it. maybe it's different at your school?

and most people won't invest more than a few hours if you can't pay them for it. way too many people on craigslist trying that.

This so much

took me over a year looking for people to work for me for free before I broke down, once you do have something tangible of high-quality that gets people excited they will be more likely to work for you without pay or for equity.

Now with that year invested, I work with my new best friends, everything takes time.

creating a patent cost +10k not very feasible