I'm in the fortunate position of being on the technical side and, I suspect like a lot of technical people, I've turned down plenty of 'opportunities' from ideas people. If you were coming to me hoping to get me on board with your idea, offering anything other than equal footing on the equity side would be a total non-starter. In the majority of cases even that would probably be a crappy deal.
One thing with this:
"If you just need someone who can understand your vision and create the software which allows it to function, you are searching for an employee."
I guess it depends on how technical your product is but I think in the beginning you need to have serious commitment from the technical team. They really need to care about getting the product right or dropping what they're doing on the weekend to deal with a support request. It could mean the difference between life and death for your company.
Comments
Seems like good advice.
I'm in the fortunate position of being on the technical side and, I suspect like a lot of technical people, I've turned down plenty of 'opportunities' from ideas people. If you were coming to me hoping to get me on board with your idea, offering anything other than equal footing on the equity side would be a total non-starter. In the majority of cases even that would probably be a crappy deal.
One thing with this:
"If you just need someone who can understand your vision and create the software which allows it to function, you are searching for an employee."
I guess it depends on how technical your product is but I think in the beginning you need to have serious commitment from the technical team. They really need to care about getting the product right or dropping what they're doing on the weekend to deal with a support request. It could mean the difference between life and death for your company.