
Ask HN: Ownership Model in Software Consulting Service - blacksoil
Hi I&#x27;m a freelance engineer starting out a software consulting business. Recently I&#x27;m trying out to see if my friend can be a suitable partner to help out in the business side.<p>Right now the situation is like this. Me:
1. Software engineer with pretty good credentials. Top 10 US CS school, few years experience in a big company in SV.
2. Leads are all coming from me, cos people know that I do software freelancing and had spent sometime professionally working in the Valley.<p>My friend:
1. Not a technical person, don&#x27;t know much about coding, but had done some static frontend development
2. Have good personality, trustworthy
3. Have good people skill, friendly, nice, and honest<p>So far, whenever there&#x27;s a lead, I met the potential client once, then had my friend to follow up until there&#x27;s a deal. I then focused on the development while he focused on managerial role such as communicating with the customer, bridging engineering and them. I think it&#x27;s been pretty good so far.<p>I wanna make this a company and am trying to figure out what&#x27;s the appropriate and fair ownership sharing between us.<p>I&#x27;m thinking of doing 70% (me)-30%(him) partnership with the expectation that in addition to do external managerial works, he&#x27;ll also help me do internal managerial works such as managing our future internal engineering team.<p>I think I deserve the 70% cos the bread-and-butter of the business is of course technology, and I&#x27;ve spent much time and effort to get to where my technical skills are currently at as well.<p>What do you guys think?<p>Thanks in advance!
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bryanyin
Well, for now, I don't see any problem here with 70-30. But have you
considered the future, what if he can bring some new customers or maybe worse,
he can't maintain good customer relationships? And, if your biz goes larger,
you need a third guy, how to share with him?

