

How much does a co-founder get when joining later - xyzabc

I have been working alone on this project for a year now. Now I want to make a startup out of it, and found a co-founder. What is a fair deal, how much shares should he get? 
To explain it better, most things technologically and conceptually are figured out. Now it's all just straightforward implementation. Given no further information what do you think?
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brk
Seems kind of late-stage to be bringing on a "co-founder".

For any new employee (and you don't need to get hung up on the titles), they
should generally get an equity grant that is proportional to the value you
intend for them to bring to the business.

If you can't grow the business to the next level without this person, they get
a stock grant similar to yours. If they are going to implement some "really
important stuff" but generally not be involved in the business management
they'll get somewhere between "quite a bit" and "a pretty good chunk".

Generally speaking, it's not a good idea to allocate 100% of the stock. You
should think up front about what other employees you'll need to hire, what you
might have to allocate to investors and so forth and make grants accordingly
now.

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xyzabc
You are right, but I can't pay him much. So I have to give him some equity, or
are there other schemes?

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sagacity
> Given no further information what do you think?

Even _with_ further information, it'll ultimately have to be what both of you
are comfortable with.

Granted, you've done a lot of hard work single-handedly but do not
underestimate the value/importance of implementation, especially in a startup
environment.

Also, if you all are going to need/raise funding, you should give some
consideration to the currently prevailing norms of founder - co-founder
ownership patterns acceptable to the funding sources and keep that in mind
while deciding on this.

HTH

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xyzabc
Until now I was working as part of research for term projects, now as a side
project. I am sure I can get traction without any investors, until I get some
users on it. So it's a side project for both of us, we both have full time
jobs. Can you give me some numbers? 70-30 or 80-20 split?

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sagacity
From purely an investor's perspective, I believe the more even a split, the
more attractive it would be.

However, since you're not seeking funding at this stage, I'd say it is pretty
much your own call - between the two of you. Have a frank discussion, try to
work out what value you've built so far and what he brings to the table and go
from there. I'd say anything, 80-20 / 70-30 is okay, as long as both of you
are comfortable with it.

HTH

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smoody
As the saying goes, half of something is better than all of nothing. If he'll
make the difference between the project being a hobby and being a real
business, then my take-it-or-leave-it advice would be to be generous with the
stock, but that's just the way I roll, your milage may vary.

That said, one way to think about splits is to look at the number of hours
you've invested, assign a dollar figure to those hours, and treat it like
you've made a capital investment and use that as a basis for
determining/justifying a split.

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Dnguyen
The hard part of any startup is execution. How will this person contribute to
your execution? What is your plan to finish beta 1 and get users to sign up?
Will this person get you there sooner? As with any project, you have to have a
plan and milestones. Then you can start this person out with a small
percentage. Give additional percentage as incentives to complete milestones.
Make sure you leave some behind to attract other people to join you!

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RiderOfGiraffes
Here's another discussion on a similar subject that might be relevant.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=874859>

