Let’s say we have 3 person A- One who visioned the idea and theme, B - A’s Colleague who is a friend and worked on A’s idea for the client & C - A’s Colleague who is a friend and worked on A’s idea for the client. Skills: A - Design and visualize concepts. B, C - Developers with same skill set who got the idea developed into a product. The product has an investor who A brought on board. A wants to quit and do full time on this. B & C can’t commit. B has a new offer and C needs to go back to school. They can only commit part time. Person A wants to take a full time salary for his commitment and pay half to B and C for their part time commitment. The product was launched and as of now the product has no sounding metrics to validate the idea. A believes he might pivot if need to. Person A also believes the equity should he 50/25/25 C is hesitant. What should person A do?
Those who cannot commit full-time should not take it equity.
Be fair and treat people well. (Also hire an experienced lawyer. It’ll reframe this entire conversation.)
It sounds like A is non-technical with B, C being the technical “founders/builders”. I’d spin this around and say if B, C had the ability to build this part time what stops them from leaving and building this out on their own and stay part time and own 100%. The only problem I see here is with part time developers is the momentum truly going to increase if A is full time or part time? Sounds like having B, C exit (or heavily diluting) might be better as it frees up the equity to bring on people full time to fuel that momentum between product+dev. Is there any real value in B, C being there part time is the real question
It seems like person A would become the CEO and is the one who would control investor relationships. From my experience, person A will eventually grow frustrated / resentment at B and C for lack of commitment (even if B and C have no other choice). I would advise A to give B and C a nominal amount and move on. Join YC or something and find fully committed technical cofounder(s). I’m guessing founders B and C have invested at most one year of their lives into the company - it really is not that much. Building a successful company and taking it to a real exit is a 10 year journey, full of sacrifice. Founders B and C, be happy that you get anything at all, and dont grab as much equity as you can - set founder A up for success so he/she can take it the rest of the way. Also, all of this is moot if you do not have product market fit.
Easy, cut out C and it’s now 75 / 25
You mean cut out C and make damn sure they can't come back and sue for A doing that