Questions

I'm the founder of a mHealth start up based in Florida and am looking for a programmer with a vested interest in our product but can only offer equity. What are some of the best sites/platforms to find potential partners wanting equity?

Are you also a developer?

If you aren't a developer, you will probably need to offer 50% as a minimum and actually you're talking about a cofounder here. i.e. as soon as you can pay yourself $1,000 /mo, you both take $1,000 a month.

This is quite normal - it's how most 2-3 person teams startup. And don't worry, even if you've been working on your idea for months and feel like you've created loads of value - it's nothing until it's been executed correctly into a working product.

If you've invested any cash of your own so far (into anything other than your own salary) then there's an argument to convert this into debt on the company books or potentially adjust the 50/50 equity share *slightly*. As a rule of thumb, ask yourself how much equity you'd have given to an investor for $100k investment, and then use that as a scale to determine how much additional equity you should gain for the cash you invested.

I'm not saying you are but... if you're one of those guys who thinks you can offer a mobile developer 5% equity to build your entire product for free then you're going to get a harsh reality check when you go out into the talent market. There are startups in London who will pay the first 1-3 iOS developers £55,000 and 3-6% each (vested over 4 years).

I've hired a lot of developers before and I successfully recruited my own 'technical cofounder' (even though we're both developers) so happy to share more personal experience over a call.


Answered 10 years ago

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