How to create your own app?

December 10, 2020 1:03 PM

I am one guy w/out any tech experience that has an idea for app. I've hired a design company to design it for me, and I've sent them my app requirements and signed an NDA. But I'm curious whether or not I own the design. For instance, if I wanted to leave and hire another designer would I be able to? Any advice on transferring ownership of an app to an entity? I'm also worried about liability if I'm ever sued. Thanks for any advice here! :)
posted by matt755811 to Technology (5 answers total)

What does your contract with them say about intellectual property rights, copyright, or non-competes? All of that should be worked out ahead of time. If they gave you a contract, read through it. If there isnt one, get a lawyer to draw one up asap.

As far as liability, you'll want an LLC at least, if not a C-Corp. You can research this on your own and have your CPA set it up for you.
posted by ananci at 1:26 PM on December 10, 2020 [3 favorites]

IAAL, IANYL. This stuff is tricky, and I've had a number of clients hire me to fix problems they created by not understanding how things work. If it's worth spending money on developers, it's worth spending money on a lawyer before you start, to ensure that you'll have the rights you need to do the things you want (plus rights to do the things you are likely to want in the future, even though you don't know right now that you might want them later.)
posted by spacewrench at 1:42 PM on December 10, 2020 [4 favorites]

It seriously depends on how much thought you have placed on it, how much user data does it retain (and thus, if necessary, follow privacy laws such as the European GDPR) how hack proof is it, and so on and so forth. Sounds like you may want to prepare a presentation and pitch your idea to some investors a la Shark Tank.
posted by kschang at 2:20 PM on December 10, 2020 [2 favorites]

It depends on your contract so work at writing that up. I work in software, for a big company that contracts out the vast majority of its development and design work, but in many cases we do own the designs and when contract-renewal time comes around we always shop around to other dev vendors.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:28 AM on December 11, 2020

If you hired them and you signed something then you need to stop everything and sit down and read what you signed. Then, if you value your idea, you need to invest some money to having a lawyer explain to you what you signed and whether or not it does what you wanted it to do.

There is a concept called work-for-hire where the one who pays for the work owns all of the rights. If that isn't what you have, then you need to look very closely both what rights you have and what rights the developers retained for themselves.

If this is still at the proposal and all you signed what truly an NDA, then you should either ask them for their standard development contract and/or get that lawyer going on drafting one.
posted by metahawk at 8:02 PM on December 11, 2020