Assume I'm supposed to do all the development work. They are not ready to do any kind of investment.
How would you respond politely in a situation like this?
It's more charitable to think of it as, "You invest some time into this, and I guarantee that both of us will make money."
They think that including you is giving you something, because you wouldn't have had the idea on your own.
You can respond politely in many ways:
- "Sorry, my financial situation doesn't give me the freedom to do unpaid work right now."
- "Here's an app I found that already does what you're talking about. What would you improve about it?" (It's often the case that the idea itself is unoriginal, and finding that out will kill their enthusiasm.)
- "Most engineers at my level are given salary and equity. If you can raise some seed money, I'd be happy to talk about being a founding engineer."
- "I like to consider every idea people present to me, but in my industry, we never write the first line of code until customers are lined up. Do you think you could get the first 10 customers/users in the next month?" (This will also shut people down because they don't actually want to start a business -- they want a get-rich-quick scheme with no investment on their part.)
I have also used the same basic idea of "I don't have enough time right now, but if you have customers lined up already or can get them and show me that a real business opportunity exists I am happy to look more into it."
Generally, I try to be polite about it overall and I don't dismiss people or their ideas outright, I listen politely and then judge based on merits (exception would be drunk cousin Eddie who won't remember in the morning so I just walk away).
“No, thank you.”
Ideas are worthless without execution. It’s unfair to ask for 50% ownership of a result where your contribution was a few sentences to describe the initial idea[1].
> They are not ready to do any kind of investment.
Investment doesn’t have to be monetary. It can also be design or marketing work, or even knowing the right people to give it traction. Assuming they won’t do any of those, it’s an easy “no”.
I’d bet money the idea isn’t even good/profitable[2], because people who think an idea is worth 50% tend to not have any clue of the amount of work it takes to bring it to life, and that just making it is not enough. I’ve had people who refuse to spend money on apps come to me with ideas for apps to make money. My answer was to confront them with that fact: they have zero understanding of what makes a person spend money on an app.
[1]: It’s common that to find success an idea has to suffer several iterations, ending up a different beast.
[2]: Maybe I’d be wrong this time, but odds are on my side.
I once tried to scare off the person by highballing on equity. Didn't work as he agreed to the deal.
But seriously I asked questions on market research, mockups, customer interviews, potential investors because maybe the friend already spent a lot of time on it. In this case no, it was really just an idea, or rather copycat of a service that already existed in another language.
In my younger years, I actually partnered with a few friends that told me this. Both times ended in disaster.
The main problem is that when someone has no skin in the game, you can work for a few months on the development side of an idea and they get bored and either aren't interested in the idea when you are finished (which happened the first time for me) or the person thinks that being a business owner means that they get to dictate ideas and you complete them..and try to become your manager/boss (happened the second time).
Ideas are the easiest part. I have tons of good ideas. If someone either can't provide the cash or the work involved in implementing these ideas, they shouldn't be part of the business.
Sean Parker is a good exception to this. He's the richest 'idea guy' I've heard of.
If you don't, say "sorry, that would amount to me working for essentially no pay, which I am not willing to do".
Neither of those cases are lying btw. If you had infinite time, you wouldn't mind taking a crack at their idea.