Ask HN: What sort of split do you offer a co-founder?

[timsegraves]

Specifically, I'm wondering how much you'd offer a technical or non-technical co-founder for an idea that you're already working on? I'm technical and have been working on a startup for a couple months and still have a couple to go before a beta launch but have been thinking about trying to find a designer/ux co-founder to help out on the front-end.

I was originally thinking 60/40 but then started wondering what other people have done in this situation. So what have others done in this scenario?

[trussi]

If you give 40% to a designer, how much are you going to give to your biz dev person (when you need one in three months when your beta is done)?

If you both use equity to give to the biz dev and the biz dev requires more than 20% to retain, you just lost majority of your business. :(

40% is way too high for a designer.

Also, make damn sure you vest any equity you give out.

Remember, you can only give it away once, so do so sparingly.

[glimcat]

This raises the question of whether you need a co-founder or a hire. It depends on the business.

IMO "40% is way too high for a designer" is too general. It depends on how significant a part of the leadership team they're going to be. Since you say you want them to "help out on the front end" - I'd lean towards guessing that you might need a hire, not a co-founder.

[timsegraves]

Good points, thanks. I guess I was just trying to figure out what is common since this is my first time thinking about finding a co-founder or two.

[kls]

60/40 sounds fair if you already have a good deal of effort into it.