I recently made the leap from full-time employee to full-time startup founder. Like many of you, I was working on my startup during nights and weekends. When starting out, it is important to know that most modern employment contracts assign any IP you create (even if it is on your own time and equipment) to your employer. So you need to review your employment documents to understand the rules.

Whatever your contract states, I think the best move is to always be open and transparent about your work. And getting a company consent letter is an easy way to start the process.

The first thing I did was work with our Legal team to craft a letter of consent.

Actually, the first thing I did was perform well and deliver at my day job so that when I sat down with our CEO to discuss, I had built up enough trust and relationship capital that it was an easy discussion.

I was fortunate to work in a...