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Interesting idea, but it sounds like you are just trying to have someone make a product for 8k which you can go and sell.

Can you specify ways that you will be involved to justify the 50-50 split?

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You're getting paid $25/hr, a $52,000 salary if the job were to last a year. Maybe not Silicon Valley money, but good money for anyone who can even begin to consider this deal. More money than I make in a year. That's good enough. The 50% is icing on the cake. He's hiring a programmer, and paying you to stay on as technical co-founder.

>He's hiring a programmer, and paying you to stay on as technical co-founder.

Nonsense. He's doing an angel investment and taking 50%. That still might be attractive since he does more than just an angel investment but don't pretend he's doing anyone a favor, this is for his own benefit as well as the potential partner.

I wouldn't say hiring a programmer is doing them a favor any more than an angel investor is. The benefit from this comes in him letting you pick your own project, that's the difference between rent-a-coder and this deal. It's a rent-a-coder contract with the option of leading into steady employment.

Again, you're seeing this dangerously wrong. This isn't an employment opportunity, this is a startup where one of the founders is using an interesting way to find a co-founder and the idea itself. You bring the idea, he brings the cash.

He's not giving you a job, he's playing the role of seed investor and co-founder.

Okay. I guess we can agree to disagree, although I think at this point we're arguing semantics.

No, we're not arguing semantics. You're saying he should just be getting a salary and the OP is an incredibly generous person for also offering him half of his own idea. I'm saying that's nonsense. It could be a good deal if you have no other options but 50% is huge.

Isn't the $8k to build it enough to justify a 50-50 split? We're talking about ideas that would otherwise never see the light of day.

You have to question why the idea would never have seen the light of day. If it's strictly because you have a cruddy job that pays minimum wage but you are smart and capable then yeah this would be the kind of opportunity one would be able to take advantage of. If you are like many of the people here, in that we aren't making terribly low amounts of money and can save up then it's not money that's keeping you from your dreams, it's you.

I guess what I'm trying to say is it REALLY depends on the person. This isn't for everyone.

The barrier to launching is rarely money - especially these days - sometimes just having one person pushing you is all it really takes - and it sometimes is worth paying for that let alone being paid.

In other news, going to college isn't for everyone.

Getting married isn't for everyone.

Working freelance isn't for everyone.

Having a kid isn't for everyone.

Nothing is for everyone, dude.

Seed money plus active involvement in growing the business and creating traction could warrant such a split -- especially for an idea that was sitting on the shelf. Fifty percent of something is better than zero percent of nothing.

I think you mean 50% of something is better than 100% of nothing. :-) Same dif though, I guess.

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