Hacker News Reader

Comment by pc86 | Hacker News Reader

Back in 2010 or so I had a series of meetings with someone about being a technical cofounder for them. I wasn't super passionate about the domain (don't even remember what it was at this point) but it was interesting enough and I had just enough technical experience at the time to think I could pull it off. We had everything figured out in broad strokes until we realized that of the 80/20 equity split, we both thought we were getting the 80. His exact words were "I just gave you this great idea why would I only get 20%?"

Anyone who sees themselves as an "ideas person" as if that is a defining or valuable characteristic is a cancer.

View on HN

"Ideas person" sounds awfully close to "thought leader". Just a bunch of butt-sniffers

You are lucky, best to avoid this situation immediately.

Curious that neither party recognized 80/20 as being unfair. There is just as much non-technical work required to get a business off the ground as there is technical work. And if one or both parties did recognize it as being unfair, thinking they could capitalize on the other's misfortune, that is not good ground to start a relationship on. At least the bullet was dodged.

You're lucky, my business partner and I put a cap table in writing where he wrote I had the most shares of anyone. Then I found out 9 months later he took nearly all of the shares for himself behind my back.

I was in this situation once. I joined, recruited the team, built the product... only to discover he couldn't sell it. Sales were abysmal. He could raise money and "sell the dream" though. That only goes on for so long without results. He also refused to pivot after 5 years of slow growth.

Company nearly went broke and was "acquired" by one of the investors for pennies on the dollar. I say never again... but, I like early stage companies. Maybe not that early.

Honestly people who think their ideas are hot shit and worth 80% of a business need to fuck off.

I can understand a people person and a tech person working together; one person handles the business and finance side, sets up meetings with investors and all that while the other does the implementation side. These are separate and both complicated affairs already; if a founder takes all that on board, great, you get a share.

But you don't earn a share for an idea. Anyone can come up with a dozen ideas in an hour's time. It's low energy, low effort and you don't get a pat on the back for having an idea.

That is basically what I told him and we parted ways. I don't know what he's doing now but at some point he was shilling some "put your business card on a website!" nonsense.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com