Founders Vs Early Employees

1. Offer money. Seriously, if you need someone to design your web application or do your accounting, don't be too cheap about it. Freelancers are professionals and need income like everybody else. You may not be able to offer market rates, so do what you can in-house, and make reasonable offers for the things you need to outsource.

2. Beg for favors from family and friends. With people you know well, you can get away with asking for favors for little or no remittance. It becomes a team effort. Of course, your friends' goodwill is a limited resource. Spend it wisely. If a graphic designer friend makes a logo for your company, and you lose interest two weeks later, she won't be as willing to help on your next project.

3. Be persuasive. There are great ways to get people to help you out, and you can learn to pitch your request so that it sounds better than "just based on promises." ;-) I'm not an expert on this, but two books that get rave reviews are "The Psychology of Persuasion" and "Getting to Yes". You can persuade people to help you out if you know how to ask. Make it a win-win situation.

I don't suggest offering equity to contractors right off the bat. A friend who will work for equity will probably also work for free, with just a few tokens of your appreciation. And if you're asking someone to do so much work that they need some compensation, maybe they should be a co-founder?

Nor do I suggest getting services on loan. ("We'll pay you once we're funded.") Investors want you to use their capital to do new work and achieve new milestones, not pay off old debt. Employees get impatient when they're owed money. And if you never get funding, it pretty much impedes any ongoing relationship with these people.

Hope this helps -- good luck!

I think it depends a lot on the phase the start up founders found themselves in. If the concept is concrete enough and the road map is more or less finalized, it might be a good idea to talk to your trusted friends and family members. It's true that the initial road map the founders decide, keeps on changing as the idea evolves into an application and the further development is done based on the feedback stream obtained. In my opinion the founders should keep themselves open to the idea of incorporating a few more people who love working in start up situations. These people can also be a part of the initial team once the start up gets funding, only if one is looking for.

How long does one wait before they start considering equity sharing other than the Founders' equity? Or in other words, when does one know that you can start sharing equity, AFTER the number of Founders has been decided?

If the Founders' hands are FULL, how do you get work done from a non-founder/prospective early employee, with PROMISES and VISION sharing?

Basically, my question is how do you get someone else other than the Founders to work for you without any monetary benefits and just based on promises? Or do any of you take this route at all?

For that you must catch hold of someone who trusts u or u trust someone like your classmate or friends. Everyone needs to pay the bill at end of the month and it would be rather difficult for you to convince a stranger