I'm looking to hire a contractor (elance, craigslist, scriptlance...) to design and build a new website of come up with. What is the best way to protect my idea & application code from being resold or stolen after the site has been completed. Especially if the coders are overseas.
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Answers by: Dave | ROLCAM | AgeKay | producemedia
I'd say that it's pretty near impossible, especially overseas. However, you can still have some protection of your implementation if you look for a capable co-founder instead of a contracter. Put another way, give your contractor a stake in the idea/company so he/she has incentive to keep proprietary things proprietary. In fact, it would probably be best to have the contractor around more long term anyway to help fix things, help scale up your site for a large influx of users, etc.
Basically, the solution would be to not use a contractor for the purpose you described. Plus, if it's a really good idea, and it will make money, then it would probably be cheaper (initially) to inspire a website developer to help you and pay with equity or joint ownership of the company. Then you can pursue all the business aspects of the company (note: I've assumed that there is a company formed around the website, which may not necessarily be true, esp if the website doesn't intend to make money. But if that were the case, you probably wouldn't be concerned about the idea getting out).