Ask HN: Standard employment agreement for startups?

3 pointsbillclerico4 comments

I took a look through SearchYC, but couldn't find any good links to standard employee agreements for startups. Does anyone have an example they can share? Looking for clauses like non-disclosure, assignment of IP, etc.

Thanks!

View on HN

It really depends on your funding situation and corporate structure, but we incorporated a c-corp and we decided not to have employees (not even the founders). We had all workers sign agreements to assign IP to the company, we created restricted stock purchase agreements, and consulting agreements.

The corporate documents included standard by-laws and initial board meeting minutes to assign various duties, etc.

Andrew, You should consult a good accountant or attorney. The IRS has very strict rules as to who may be compensated as an employee versus an independent contractor or consultant. This is the case, partly, no doubt, to ensure that employees are classified as such and the appropriate payroll taxes are shared between the employee and the employer. As I understand it, officers of C corps are essentially employees and may not be compensated as consultants for services they render to a corporation. Assigning rights in IP and stock purchase agreements are independent of the issue of whether or the someone working for the company may be considered by the IRS as an employee or an independent contractor.

Thanks, but my attorney set up the company.

Check out http://docstoc.com if you haven't already. You can find a lot of agreements/contracts up there for inspiration.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com