[bl4k]

I can't agree with the comment above enough.

I have seen this situation far too many times (both with myself earlier in my career and with friends) - employees feel loyalty to their employer, but it is a one-way street. You have the added pressure of shouldering all of the technical work for the company.

There are too many red flags in your story (legal fees being too high to give you stock should tell you how much they really value your work). I think it is shocking that they didn't put you on a stock vesting schedule as soon as your trial period is up, considering that you are building the product. You should be the CTO/VP of this company, and part of that founding group - yet they want you to build the tech but treat you as a low-level employee.

Find a new role and quit asap. You were smart enough to see that the company is sinking, so use the experience you have gained from working for this company to find yourself a good role in another startup, or work on your own and teach these lessons to others as a consultant.

The alternative is an example that I went through myself. I was in a similar situation - in the financial field with a solid group of founders, the only tech guy etc. The company (this was 99-00) was running out of money. I re-negotiated my role to be the CTO, negotiated a solid slice of the company stock and built a fresh new prototype of our platform in 6 weeks - complete with integrated analytics, customer management and support (using a third party platform). We used the prototype and business plan to raise a new round - I got a pay kick at that point and a budget to bring in 5-6 developers. We fired a lot of the business people who were not doing a lot (they bought their big financial company work ethic with them to the startup). 18 months later we were acquired by a large financial firm, which was a solid outcome for all involved.