'With just 3 words, my boss crushed my career dreams.'

Picture this: You've spent years refining your brilliant app idea. You've invested your blood, sweat, tears, (and cash), into its development.

Excited about your progress, you decide to share your idea with your employer, only to have your dreams crushed with just three words.

This nightmare scenario isn't hypothetical, it's exactly what happened to a mentee of Michelle Battersby, co-host of Mamamia's BIZ podcast.

"I was mentoring someone who had spent a considerable amount of money developing an app, and they'd then gone and told their employer, and it was deemed a 'conflict of interest', and they've not been able to continue to pursue that side hustle," Michelle shared with her co-host Soph Hirst.

Those three words, 'conflict of interest', became the entrepreneurial equivalent of stepping on a landmine… one wrong move and boom, their business dream exploded right before their eyes.

"The first thing for anyone to be aware of who's starting to work on a side project is what is in your current employment contract," Michelle explained.

"This may or may not seem obvious, but a lot of employment contracts actually don't allow secondary employment. Or if you come up with an idea whilst you're working at the company, they own that IP, and they own that idea."

Knowing this, it's no wonder social media is filled with baby CEOs and anti-corporate sentiment.

Watch: Have you ever dated a co-worker? Post continues after video.

But before we all stage a mass walk out, according to BIZ, working for a company can actually be beneficial when starting your own business, particularly at the start of your career. Here's why:

1. You can gain skills on someone else's dime: You're working in these big companies with processes and policies in place, and money to help you develop your skills. Do the course, seek executive coaching, shadow people. Take as much knowledge as you can from that environment, and build yourself on paper.

2. You gain financial stability and networks: Your corporate job provides stable income while you're building your ideas. Plus, "your network will pay dividends if you do go on to start your own business".

3. You gain leadership experience: Not everyone has natural leadership capabilities. In a corporate environment, "you're exposed to managers, to leaders, to execs, to people with decades and decades more experience than you... you'll know how it feels to be an employee, and that is very important."

4. You can make mistakes on someone else's dime: You have the freedom to mess up, and it's not at your expense. That's a freedom you simply don't have when running your own company.

Once you've soaked up all the knowledge you can, like a corporate sponge (with your employment contract triple-checked, of course), then you can spread your entrepreneurial wings.

Listen to the full episode of BIZ below.

But how do you know validate your idea without breaking the bank? According to BIZ, there are three things to do before you quit your day job.

• Survey potential customers. Use a survey platform like Google Forms or Typeform to collect responses from potential customers. Start with your friends, then ask them to pass it on. Share it on LinkedIn and social media to gather more responses.

• Create content to gauge interest. Generate content around your idea and monitor the response. For example, if you think that influencers are currently struggling to manage their DMs, you can create a TikTok and say to all the creators out there, 'If you could hire one person in your team to do one thing that would make your life easier, what would it be?'.

• Studying the competition. Competition is good; it indicates that there actually is a need for the thing you're focusing on. Find companies in your space — both successful ones and those that failed — and reach out to their founders or employees for information.

As Michelle's mentee learnt the hard way, entrepreneurship requires careful planning and validation before you invest your blood, sweat, and tears into it.

Like Soph said: "Making money is your reward for putting value into the world."

BIZ is the podcast to help get your work-life, and your life-life, sorted. Together, hosts Soph Hirst and Michelle Battersby share expert secrets and shortcuts to make you better at the job you're doing today — and help you design the career you want in the future, whatever that may be.

Soph Hirst and Michelle Battersby are your favourite new internet career mentors 💖 — helping Gen Z fast-track their careers without hating their lives.

The BIZ by Mamamia newsletter delivers honest advice from women who've actually done it. No fluff or corporate speak – just real talk about building your career and making money. Free in your inbox every Thursday. Sign up now.

Feature Image: Getty