Hi First of all, well done for successfully developing a product/business and gaining market traction! There are various 'models' that you can use to estimate how many shares/percentages your new partner should get. These include (a) his/her investment in time and/or money, (b) the current + pot...
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer nor an accountant, and this is not "professional advice." I have, however, set up a few businesses and had partners. What you need to do is incorporate and then write up an Operating Agreement that lays out the terms of your partnership. Who owns what. How the ne...
Hi The terms that you are describing our much more common in a founders/partnership agreement, and less common to an NDA. Either way, there are a few issues missing in the conditions that you described, 3 of the most important ones being (1) the waiver of Intellectual Property rights, (2) the se...
Myself and friends have had great success meeting technical folks and candidates for co-founders at networking events such as Start-up Weekends (http://startupweekend.org/) and local networking events you find through www.meetup.com such as Hackers and founders, Startup Meetup, Minnesota Entrepr...
The previous answers given here are great, but I've copied a trick from legendary investor Monish Pabrai that I've used in previous startups that seems to work wonders -- especially if your company does direct B2B sales. Many Founders/ CEOs are hung up on having the Founder/ CEO/ President titl...
The biggest question you'll have to answer at this point is whether you and the founder can get along. You've already highlighted issues with the founder but does this bother you? Are both your goals aligned and do your values agree with him/her? In a previous experience, I brought someone on w...
I think it would be vital to the company's survival that roles and responsibilities are clearly defined. If there's grey area, I've found that work tends to gravitate toward the more motivated party, and the social/power structure gets weird. I started a company with four founders, and we didn'...
It's good that you know what you want, but I expect that here you will be constrained by the market. I've been involved in startups a long time, and I have honestly never of a developer who is not only being asked to work for no salary, but to buy in with cash. You may see it as "giving away equi...
I would need more details to understand that nature of your product but i would encourage the following exercises: 1. Pre-sales: the ultimate validation is getting people to agree to pre purchase your product. What I mean is actual exchange of money. This can be done through kickstarter or less...