Original Summary

My cofounder and I have been building a startup together for a while. We’re both technical founders, the product is already built but we’re still very early and customer acquisition is our biggest weakness. Recently we met someone with a lot of experience in the industry. He seems very well connected, understands the market deeply and could potentially help a lot with sales, partnerships, distribution and overall business development. He wants to join as an equal partner - 1/3 each. On one hand, he could genuinely be the missing piece and help turn the project into something much bigger. On the other hand, we just met him. We don’t know yet how much he will actually contribute, how well we work together, whether his network will really translate into customers or how committed he’ll be long term. We would obviously use vesting and a cliff but even then, giving someone a path to 33% based largely on potential feels like a huge decision. For people who have been through something similar: Would you bring someone like this in as an equal cofounder? Would you work together first before agreeing on equity? Would you use milestone-based equity or some kind of earn-in? How do you tell the difference between someone who deserves cofounder-level equity and someone who should instead be a highly compensated sales/business development person? Would really appreciate advice from founders who have added a cofounder after the original team had already built the product.   submitted by   /u/useful_byte [link]   [comments]

  • 情报分类：商业与市场研究
  • 分类依据：内容涉及商业、投资或市场动态
  • 信息来源：Reddit · SaaS
  • 发布时间：2026/9/23 04:42:33