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Wearing my boss hat what you seem to be doing is: Asking for a 20% raise Asking me to go to the time and expense of finding somebody to cover the extra day that you won't be working. Signalling that you're likely not going to be here in the long term. I'm not seeing the upside here :-) Unless you are currently extremely underpaid for the role (1) is ...

Take the job and learn what goes on in a big company. Off course at the same time start working on your business idea as well. Benefits of working for a company It pays the bills. You learn how a company works. Learn about company processes such as development, marketing, team work etc. You get to identify issues that a company struggles with You get ...

It all depends on the nature of what you're doing. But since you're trying to build a software product company, there are some serious problems you're going to run into if your product is anything more than a simple shareware app: Development will be slow Support will be non-existant Technology and competition will change faster than you can I learned ...

Never have a single person with administrative privileges on your accounts. Always have at least two (for example, the person actually doing the work, and the controller or the CFO). Also, make sure all the accounts are in the name of the business entity. The person with the administrative access is a mere representative, if the assistant abuses the power ...

I was in your position a few years ago. I was not happy with my day job, my friends were all getting involved with start up companies that were doing some really exciting and interesting things. I began working on the side with several new companies, then several more, then the next thing I knew I had quit my full time job to freelance. I have to say, it ...

First, have you tried my equity calculator? The fact that you are not committed when the other two are full-time is a major red flag. If the other two truly will go full speed on the idea, you'll be soon left behind. So in that scenario, yes 5% is fair. The question I ask is always the same: what would happen to the project if you stopped working on it? If ...

If your startup makes it or not is a matter of guessing. But I can tell from own experience of half-time startup work. I have a customer for whom I work 20 hours. My plan was to work the other 20 hours for my startup. The rest of the time I want to use for overhead, marketing, other startup related work and so on. This is the theory. The fact is that ...

Offer him 20% of the business you are starting and he might go for it. Point out any cross-over work that might exist where stuff you learn from your own project will benefit your work for him and/or his business. Add that Google give their employees 1 day a week to work on their own projects with a similar scheme. While you're at it, you could also ask ...

My basic answer would be Yes to most of your idea. Vest over a good period, say 24 months Setup milestones for both of you to be fair. Each period (say 3 months) provides a "milestone payment" of 3/24 of your vesting provided you hit your targets for the period. Sales and Marketing milestones could be First X users from sources setup by them. (Google ...

Honestly, only you will know how your boss will react. Are there other employees working part time? Maybe you can approach the subject from a different angle. When you do approach it, make sure you approach them with their interests in mind. Offer to work full time hours every other sprint or so. Just remember, don't just ask part time, part time in most ...

I'm assuming you're in the US. Why do you think you need to incorporate? What's wrong with setting up a partnership agreement for each project and be done with it? From what you just described, incorporating will probably cause more harm then benefit. If you're concerned with liability issues, consider professional liability insurance. Anyway, discuss ...

Best to talk it out and act as if you did restricted shares at the outset and clearly had laid out duties. Frankly if he didn't do anything else, he probably deserves 10 or 15% for the idea and early business planning. Talk it out. He's better off with a smaller piece of a bigger pie ... so maybe you tie your gaining ground on real progress that you ...

Say nothing to your boss, stay at the job and go for a raise. That done, use the extra money to get a programmer to get on-board to help you. You can work a few hours on the weekend and you can also hire some talent from a second-world country (no offense intended) to take advantage of the salary differences. You keep full equity and your boss is unaware ...

About whether it is a common scenario, I would say no. Most IT people I know work-full time for a company or full-time as freelances. The only exceptions are maternity-related. If it is a good or bad idea depends on the options. Options are: a) Full-time job with leisure time for your startup (you have discarded it) b) Full-time startup (you have ...

This question raises a very important issues. Is it the number of hours that count in business? I feel this a wrong approach. x hours of work by y, and x+2 hours of work by z can not be compared. Even both y and z are in the same fields, their productivity will be different. This approach in my opinion is faulty. It is important to note how your idea or for ...

As Patrick mentioned, start with 1/3 split and then adjust as the business develops. The adjustment terms should be written in the operating agreement. Make sure that all partners need to agree on any future adjustments to shares before they take effect (also should be spelling in the operating agreement). I wouldn't start with something different that 1/3's ...

Together with a colleague of mine, we are considering setting up a new Startup. We have a good idea of our initial target market. Total global potential market is order of magnitude between 200 Mio USD and 500 Mio USD for the initial target market. We are in the phase of conceptualizing a startup and we are in early phases of preparing a business plan. Both ...

One caveat: review your employment contract with the company you are now working for. If the IP you want to develop is related to their business, and you've signed an "invention assignment" agreement (which would be pretty common), anything you develop could belong to them. Certainly, they'll be able to claim that it does, which could cause you enough ...

It all depends on how much time and effort is part-time. I know very successful entrepreneurs who spent 60 hours on their part-time venture every week for 3 years on top of their existing jobs and then quit. It is important to have a strong vision if you have a part-time attempt at your startup. The other key thing is to be flexible and deal with ...