
Founders Vs Early Employees - nurall

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RyanGWU82
1\. Offer money. Seriously, if you need someone to design your web application
or do your accounting, don't be too cheap about it. Freelancers are
professionals and need income like everybody else. You may not be able to
offer market rates, so do what you can in-house, and make reasonable offers
for the things you need to outsource.

2\. Beg for favors from family and friends. With people you know well, you
_can_ get away with asking for favors for little or no remittance. It becomes
a team effort. Of course, your friends' goodwill is a limited resource. Spend
it wisely. If a graphic designer friend makes a logo for your company, and you
lose interest two weeks later, she won't be as willing to help on your next
project.

3\. Be persuasive. There are great ways to get people to help you out, and you
can learn to pitch your request so that it sounds better than "just based on
promises." ;-) I'm not an expert on this, but two books that get rave reviews
are "The Psychology of Persuasion" and "Getting to Yes". You can persuade
people to help you out if you know how to ask. Make it a win-win situation.

I don't suggest offering equity to contractors right off the bat. A friend who
will work for equity will probably also work for free, with just a few tokens
of your appreciation. And if you're asking someone to do so much work that
they _need_ some compensation, maybe they should be a co-founder?

Nor do I suggest getting services on loan. ("We'll pay you once we're
funded.") Investors want you to use their capital to do new work and achieve
new milestones, not pay off old debt. Employees get impatient when they're
owed money. And if you never get funding, it pretty much impedes any ongoing
relationship with these people.

Hope this helps -- good luck!

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somethingorange
I think it depends a lot on the phase the start up founders found themselves
in. If the concept is concrete enough and the road map is more or less
finalized, it might be a good idea to talk to your trusted friends and family
members. It's true that the initial road map the founders decide, keeps on
changing as the idea evolves into an application and the further development
is done based on the feedback stream obtained. In my opinion the founders
should keep themselves open to the idea of incorporating a few more people who
love working in start up situations. These people can also be a part of the
initial team once the start up gets funding, only if one is looking for.

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nurall
How long does one wait before they start considering equity sharing other than
the Founders' equity? Or in other words, when does one know that you can start
sharing equity, AFTER the number of Founders has been decided?

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nurall
If the Founders' hands are FULL, how do you get work done from a non-
founder/prospective early employee, with PROMISES and VISION sharing?

Basically, my question is how do you get someone else other than the Founders
to work for you without any monetary benefits and just based on promises? Or
do any of you take this route at all?

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RyanGWU82
oops, see my post to the main topic.

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mukund
For that you must catch hold of someone who trusts u or u trust someone like
your classmate or friends. Everyone needs to pay the bill at end of the month
and it would be rather difficult for you to convince a stranger

