Totally agree. To be honest, I think a 10% offer here would kind of lead to the worst of all worlds: too high for the person to be considered an employee, but too low for the person to really be considered a partner.

I've seen a case where a company was started by a very small, relatively inexperienced team, and then had 2 much more experienced "business people" join later. These 2 business people were actually given "founder" credit and equal equity stakes, because it was clear these folks would be integral to the success of the business (and, indeed, in retrospect, they were, and the business became quite successful). I point this out because it's an example were the addition of some later stage business people does deserve large equity stakes. But given the original commenters history (e.g a previous large exit), it doesn't appear that's the case here, so it doesn't look like he needs a partner to begin with.

Agree on your case also. Business folks can add tremendous value. But especially late-joiners as, in your case, the better setup is to set some success criteria, hurdles, and reward accordingly. Win-win.

Yeah frankly my expectation on the most realistic outcome was some middle ground: where they buy in and i juice it with a bonus of equity based on outcomes.

Regardless, I’m just trying to work on making progress day over day. It’s fun, and a real business, so good problems to have.

Yeah, i mean, I’ve done this a few times before and had one decent outcome…i feel I’ve seen enough to feel totally at peace with this outcome.

I think getting incentives right is the hardest part of business, once you find any initial traction. It’s less sexy but i agree, finding good employees and contractors is the next step from here.