Ask HN: How much equity should I ask as technical cofounder?
I'm creating a startup with a good friend (15+ years). He is non technical while I am a computer scientist and considered brilliant in my field.
At the beginning, he had a totally different idea in a totally different field, but I explained him why it was nonsensical (guess what, it was about blockchain).
Then he had an "idea" that was the combination of
1) a ~technology I introduced him to for the first idea (more like a CS field than a technology)
2) a field it could be applied to
But his idea was really confuse, it was just the combination of two concepts. We worked a lot together to make it work (3 months, about 10-15 hours a week). I believe very few people could have done this much:
- He would never have been able to understand anything of the technical part, and I suppose nobody in the scientific community would have given him so much time and attention like I did.
- I would never have had the will to investigate that, and he was more focused on the business part than I am.
Honestly, I think our contributions are quite balanced, but now our idea requires to have some relationships with regulatory authorities, and as a matter of fact, my friend's father is rich and influential (mine are not poor and have relationships, but it is really not comparable). His father wants to invest a lot of money in our project (2M for the first 6 months).
(see the rest below in the comments)