Recently at my place of employment it was discovered that I was developing an outside personal project (personal project being a project I have been working on, in my spare time, for my own purposes, using my personal equipment).

My employer has an idea which is very similar to my outside project but has not been started, created, put out to market yet.

When I originally started working for the company I signed a non-compete contract.

My employer is now saying that because my outside/personal project is similar to theirs that I am now a competitor and breaching my original non-compete agreement.

What I would like to know is where do I stand in this situation?

Also my personal project has not been fully developed, nor is available to anyone other than myself.

So if we both don’t have full/released products (full meaning put out to the public) are we actually competitors?

There is going to be a meeting in the coming weeks to discuss this issue and would like to have a proper argument in place.

I know some of this conversation is best held with a lawyer but I don’t have the money to do that yet. I’m not looking for full legal advice just anyone who has maybe experienced this or can give any advice.

Thanks in advance!