Unicorns

Adam’s been working on a mobile app for a year with another developer, Betsy. The idea is in the medical space. Carly, the CEO is a Nurse who’s offered a few sentences of domain knowledge and some hand drawn sketches. There’s been no equity discussion. Adam’s contemplating what he should ask for. My opinion was that him and Betsy should get 95%. They’ve done 95% of the work.

That didn’t sit right with him. Carly was a friend. He couldn’t see that she was taking advantage of them. Saying that perhaps she could work on setting up the LLC and some legal things to start carrying her weight. An LLC takes about five minutes. The legal stuff could be done by AI and a legal consultation. Nowhere near a years work.

He was at 50 for her and 25 for his Betsy and him until I proposed they at least split it three ways. Which would still be massively generous to Carly. He seemed somewhat open to that ratio.

Here’s the thing

This case may not be as rare as it seems. Many developers struggle with self worth and business savvy. Getting it into their head that because the project is moving slowly, they’re the problem. Preferring to leave that ugly salesy stuff to the more extroverted folks. Not realizing that although emotionally taxing, the business side is much less messy than development.

If you’re a killer salesperson and put as much energy into promoting the company as the developers do into the software, you’re going to be someone’s catch.