>> I've been burnt multiple times by this.

I've similarly had so many technical friends burnt by this.

My new suggestion for "business co-founders" pitching ideas to technical friends where "business co-founders" propose techies do all the upfront work is --

If you have no Purchase Orders, no Funding, no Transact-able Relationships, no prior wins (esp publicly verifiable wins) -- then you put in money. Find some reasonable rate you pay for the upfront technical work. This "balances out" the skin in the game. If they have no money, i'd half-seriously suggest they go borrow money to pay the technical co-founder.

They need some risk, some skin in the game to make this an equal effort.

> This "balances out" the skin in the game.

That's a good way to put it. I'll remember that. Thanks!

If they lack the money or ability to get money, they are delusional about having the skills and other qualities of a business cofounder.

I get a lot of inbound in this form and after the first disaster I'm much more aware of what a nontechnical founder needs to be doing. I think part of the problem is that they imagine themselves as having CEO responsibilities at the start (e.g. setting vision, hiring, etc.). But that's not what a nontechnical founder does on day 1. On day 1 they are the sales rep, QA, point-of-contact, and customer interviewer. They are every entry level position at the same time, because that's what the company needs.

The big smell here is offering not-equal equity to technical cofounders who join early (first year). YC's proposed solution for later joining cofounders is just to give them equal equity but start their vest later, which I find very incentive aligning. The usual explanation is that they've done all the "market research + product/idea development" already, which is useless.