

Ask HN: Advice about equity split - equityadvice000

Here&#x27;s my situation:<p>I recently joined a startup a few months back that was founded roughly two years ago. However, in that time period, they never released a product nor gained customers.<p>Since I&#x27;ve joined, a product has been released (100% my IP); we&#x27;ve gained a few customers; I&#x27;ve managed to narrow the scope of the business while honing in on our core value proposition.<p>Currently, the startup only has two people working on it - myself and the original founder. He had a couple other co-founders work on it over the years, but due to various uncontrollable factors, they are no longer working on the product.<p>When I signed on, I agreed to a status as co-founder and 25% equity, which I thought was fine. Now I know any percent of essentially $0 valuation is still 0, but I can&#x27;t help feel I&#x27;ve really brought life into this startup and my contribution is more significant than 25%. The orginal co-founder, I recently found out, has around 60% equity, while the rest belongs to the other original founders (vesting, I guess).<p>I have 0 complaints about the original founder. While not technical, he works hard, is passionate, and seems to be doing the right things.<p>I haven&#x27;t signed any document whatsoever, so my split is not set in stone or anything. Should I just throw this notion that I &quot;deserve&quot; a higher stake from my mind?<p>What are your thoughts?
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maxbrown
If it's bugging you now, it'll bug you in the future. IMO you should deal with
it head-on, soon.

Curious - why would you not have created a new company when you started
working with this person, instead of joining their legacy company with the
long-gone co-founders holding equity? What is the existing company
organization bringing to the table if there was no product released, and now
there is a product released with 100% your IP?

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equityadvice000
As far as I can tell, the vision and values of the company have remained
largely the same since its inception. The big missing piece was a product;
although, even after the release, product-market fit still hasn't been
completely established.

I think it would be wrong to just ignore the hard work put in during those
first two years, even though there wasn't anything tangible to show for it,
except for a few mockup and some broken code (which is currently not being
used at all). I'd feel a little guilty if (let's say), the product takes off
and the original co-founders received nothing because a new entity was formed
even though the idea remains the same.

