I read that as selling the venture to the developer, i.e. convincing a developer that the company has all of the pieces it needs to be successful already except for a developer. Note that good freelancers usually have paying customers already, so even they will need some convincing to take on a new client.

As far as offering equity to a developer, this may be as weak a move as building a product before proper validation, since it essentially means bringing on an investor before proving that there's something worth investing in.