Ask HN: Common ratio; hours of work invested to equity retained, in startups?

[aspiretoreality]

Let us consider 2 web applications, which are pretty far along in development; posit they are both very close to MVP; further, an experienced VC team feels that both apps have rouphly equal potential. The team developing application A, has invested 3,700 hours and the team developing application B, has invested 1850 hours. What percent of a company might the devs for app A get for their elbow~grease capital vs the devs for app B, for theirs? Is there a widely employed ratio for sweat equity or is this alone not a signifigant enough factor amongst all the other considerations, to move the figure much?

[onion2k]

Investment is based on an estimate of the future value of the business, so 'sweat equity' doesn't mean much because it's in the past. If a founder/VC wants to maintain a relationship with anyone who's put work in already then it's not unreasonable to negotiate a small percentage, but it's very unlikely that anything would be based on hours or the monetary value of hours worked so far.

You chose to give your time freely and you could have walked away at any point. You don't get to retrospectively ask for 'payment'.