Aurum
Download

Side Project to Company

Turn the thing you build on evenings and weekends into a real company: clean ownership, honest traction numbers, written full-time criteria and a proper setup for growth.

Free · Mac (Apple silicon) and Windows · v1.0.0 · Other platforms

Then open the Marketplace in the app, search for Side Project to Company, and click Install. It goes into your own files, and works offline from then on.

What it installs.

1

Pillar

1

Area

50

Projects

200

Starter tasks

🚀 Founding & Startups

Side Project to Company

Turning a side project into a real company, deciding when it deserves full time and setting it up properly for growth.

  1. Honest snapshot of the side project today
  2. Employment contract and IP clause review
  3. Separating the project from employer time and equipment
  4. Weekly hours log for nights and weekends
  5. Ninety-day usage and revenue baseline
  6. One-page company thesis for the project
  7. Ownership map of every project account and asset
  8. Sign-off from past contributors and collaborators
  9. Full-time readiness criteria written in advance
  10. Saturday morning shipping session
  11. Monthly traction review against the full-time criteria
  12. Weekly user feedback triage
  13. Separate bookkeeping for side project income
  14. Support and uptime coverage while employed
  15. Quarterly keep, grow or shelve review
  16. Day job and side project boundary rules
  17. Monthly update to early users
  18. Tax set-aside for side project income
  19. Interviews with existing users about paying
  20. Reading retention cohorts for a small product
  21. Company finance basics for builders
  22. Copywriting for the home page and pricing page
  23. Self-serve docs that cut support emails
  24. Case studies of side projects that became companies
  25. Open-source licensing and commercial models
  26. Turning on payments for a free hobby project
  27. Hardening hobby code for paying customers
  28. Feature kill list before scaling
  29. Narrowing from hobby audience to one paying segment
  30. Terms, privacy policy and data handling for a real product
  31. Moving the project into a company entity
  32. Full time, part time or sabbatical decision
  33. Funding route for the project as a company
  34. Pricing migration for early free users
  35. Telling your employer about the side project
  36. Announcing the change to existing users
  37. Two-week holiday sprint as a full-time trial
  38. First contractor for the side project
  39. One-year review of the project as a company
  40. Open-source maintainer turning a library into a company
  41. Newsletter or content side project becoming a business
  42. Consultant's internal tool becoming a product
  43. Side project built with a co-worker from the same employer
  44. Mobile app or browser extension side project as a business
  45. Conflict of interest check for an industry side project
  46. Acquisition offer for the side project
  47. Clean IP chain for investors and buyers
  48. Spinning out with your employer's blessing
  49. Choosing one project from a portfolio of side projects
  50. Handbook so the product runs a month without you

Where it starts.

Each project arrives with its purpose, milestones and first tasks written out. Here is how the first three read.

Honest snapshot of the side project today

Side projects tend to live in the builder's head as either a hobby or a future unicorn, rarely as what they actually are. A one-page snapshot of users, revenue, code, costs and hours spent gives you a fixed starting point that every later decision in this area can be measured against.

First tasks

  • Export last month's user and signup counts from your analytics or database
  • Add up revenue and every recurring cost, including hosting and domains
  • Estimate your hours from the last four weeks of commits and calendar
  • Write the one-line verdict at the top of the snapshot

Employment contract and IP clause review

Many employment contracts claim ownership of inventions made during employment, sometimes even outside working hours, and some forbid outside business activity altogether. Knowing exactly what your contract says before the project has value is the difference between a clean company and one an employer could later claim.

First tasks

  • Find your signed contract and any invention assignment you signed at hire
  • Highlight every clause on IP, outside work, confidentiality and competition
  • Write the questions you need a lawyer to answer about the project
  • Book a consultation with an employment lawyer and record their advice

Separating the project from employer time and equipment

Code written on a work laptop, pushed from the office network or committed during paid hours hands an employer an easy argument that they own it. Moving every part of the project onto your own devices, accounts and time closes that gap from today onward and gives you a record that you did.

First tasks

  • Search your work laptop and work cloud storage for any project files
  • Move the repository, keys and documents to a personal machine
  • Change any project account still registered to your work email
  • Run a commit timestamp report and save it with your contract notes

Make it yours.

Install Side Project to Company, then tell Aurum the date you're aiming for. It checks whether the plan fits the weeks you actually have.

Free · Mac (Apple silicon) and Windows · v1.0.0 · Other platforms

Blueprints are general information to help you organise your own work. They are not medical, financial, legal or other professional advice. See the Terms.