You built a business from “the ground up” were you dropped on earth like terminator and started your business or did some of the skills you learned at a previous employer help you at all?

I was drop on earth what's your point? LAMO

My dad taught me in south Arkansas while helping him. He died a few years later. I moved from Texas to Wyoming and started a new business with a patent I developed. Yes I paid for it all myself. I brought equipment in from China and started built it from a shop that was 50'X50' by myself. I ended up selling it 5 years later. I didn't know anyone in Wyoming before moving up there.

I’d say your patents protect you there. Non competes are real popular for companies to give their sales staff- and usually, you may be an outlier, the product they sell and the companies they sell to are not some super secret exclusive deal, the non compete is just used to keep a person stuck when the comp plan is not as good as the market says it’s should be.

I dealt with one noncompete situation in my career. Our company was sold and a lot of management was eventually let go. In order to get your severance check you had to sign a one year non compete agreement. The severance was a lump sum payment equal to one years salary, so it wasn’t insignificant. No one questioned the ethics or legality of the agreement, but I believe most took it, signed it, and ran.

I have no problem with that and, if that was the way they worked, I think it would be fair. Pay me my salary for the duration of the non-compete. Would get tricky for some salespeople who have a low base salary and make a lot in commission, but that could be negotiated.

One of my business mentors had a carpet cleaning company. It was more of a tax write off because he would train people to do the job, they would go buy their own white van and do their own thing, cutting the business owner out and charging less. He was telling me he found one guy had even printed up his own receipt book and was using business owners time & equipment and charge the customer, putting the money in his own pocket. Don (the business owner) had GPS trackers put in his vans and watched the techs go to unscheduled stops, do a carpet service and keep the funds...while using Dons' equipment and getting paid by the hour.

The second business I started, grew and sold, they had me sign a non compete for 5 years. I was cool with that.

I wish I had a non-compete with a 15 year clause in it. I’d quit tomorrow and they would have to pay me until I retire.