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Re:Ask HN: What equity percentage for a co-founder joining a... by curioustechie on Wednesday December 02, 2009 @10:15AM (#972161)
> As I can see there is no software and no revenue/customers.

Wouldn't changing one of those "no"s to "n potential" make the venture less risky?

Re:Ask HN: What equity percentage for a co-founder joining a... by brk on Wednesday December 02, 2009 @12:19PM (#972427)
"potential" has little value.

You have boundless "potential". I just dreamed up an idea for a new online social networking viral game. My "potential" userbase is billions of people (my game can do accurate language auto-translations on the fly, so Chinese people can play with Russians seamlessly). My "potential" income is huge, my "research" shows that people will pay $1/mo to be a part of this game. That's BILLIONS of dollars in MONTHLY income.

Only problem is that, well, I haven't written any of the software yet (but I sketched everything out, and priced my servers, so I've "eliminated" that risk). I even checked with a bunch of people I know and confirmed that they would pay $1/mo to play this game.

There is a TON of potential here. I'll give you a 20% equity stake if you'll sign up to just write the initial code.

Re:Ask HN: What equity percentage for a co-founder joining a... by volida on Wednesday December 02, 2009 @10:36AM (#972211)
You are not clear enough.
Re:Ask HN: What equity percentage for a co-founder joining a... by curioustechie on Wednesday December 02, 2009 @12:27PM (#972441)
Sorry, I was being overly cagey.

As you correctly point out, the business has no customers. Wouldn't it be a less risky proposition if it had commitments from potential high-value customers?

(N.B. I said "less risky", not "risk-free".)

Re:Ask HN: What equity percentage for a co-founder joining a... by volida on Wednesday December 02, 2009 @02:38PM (#972705)
"commitments from potential high-value customers"

Without more information, I think you are in better position to judge that. But, commitments without any contract is something very volatile.