Brandon,

1. Make sure you are paying the developer on a "time and materials" basis, so that you own the intellectual property. Sometimes, developers are hired on the basis that they own the intellectual property, and so would be free to sell or re-use the work that they have produced, even though you paid for it. You don't necessarily need a complex contract to enforce this: just clarifying this with the developer (on email, so you have a record of it) will give you basic protection. If you use a service like Elance, they can provide a standard contract which covers this stuff (I think).

2. I'm not familiar with the process of registering your product that Alex Brannan refers to. If your product is patentable, then perhaps you could patent it, but that is complex and expensive and you'd definitely need professional advice to do that. Other than a patent, I'm not sure what other registration process you could use that you could give you any protection.

3. Your developer is (probably) a developer, not an entrepreneur. A business is more than just an idea. The reason he is working for you is that he may not have the necessary skills to run his own business (finding customers, managing customers, doing the accounts, marketing, legal stuff, etc. etc. etc.), and may have no desire to. He is making a good living as a developer and (hopefully) won't want to jeapardise his professional reputation by nicking his client's intellectual property.

Hope that helps.

Hello Brandon, a warming welcome to our community!

Well, you don't have many options since you future business is not running yet, right now is just an idea/project. What I suggest you to do is to register your product SECONDS AFTER the developer finishes his work! Haha.

For real, register the product rapidly after the end of the developing process and there won't be any problems.

Take it easy!

Hello, I'm not gonna answer the question sorry. But i'm wondering what Alex means by "register your product". Register where ? and if it's a website the product, can you also register it somewhere to protect it ? Thanks

Hello,

I am not agree with Brucegreig's Point no 1 of "Time and Material" Modal, In such modal You outsource your Project but not connect with your team and see their daily progress, thus communication gasps occurs and project fails.

My suggestion for you are :

1. Select a Company with good reference list instead of any Freelancer,There are many websites that provides freelancers, but can you trust on freelancers regarding IP and Code ownership?

2. Sign NDA and other Documents.Freelancers can change their address or identity so you can't trace them, but if You sign these with company then such things will not happen.

3. Hire a Full time offshore dedicated developer from a Company Instead of Outsourcing Project.

Offshore dedicated staff is a resource working in offshore location on full time/part time or hourly basis; This developer/programmer works like your full time employee focusing just on your work; the only difference is since resource is sitting in our facilities so you can manage the resource, get the job done using your management techniques/ strategies and that too without committing to the salary, taxes, benefits, and a other obligations like infrastructure cost, computers and software licenses. Do direct interaction with your assigned resource and this way we work in tight collaborative model which is almost risk free.

Please check more about offshore Dedicated developer

Can you believe cost for offshore dedicated developers starts from $6 per hour.

Please visit us at www.talentsfromindia.com for more detail.

Brandon,

I have to agree with BruceGrieg in that your developer is probably NOT an entrepreneur and probably will not steal (or sell) your idea. But, your question got me thinking about the issue of trust. Trust will be critical with your relationship with your developer since it will likely not be a single transaction but hopefully a great, ongoing relationship.

I have worked with many developers over the years and the best experiences have been with developers who understand my business and revenue model in great detail. The more your developer knows about your business, the more value he/she can provide to you.

Otherwise, I suppose you could have your developer sign an NDA/Non-Compete...

Hope this helps.

David Hunegnaw