I wrote the title so I could get programmers to help me understand. I used to program years ago and I respect programmers and understand they are the lifeblood to any project.
I've asked only 1-5 hours per week from this individual. I've managed our frontend dev from an outsourced team in Poland and based on my same "can't program knows how many hours it takes" effectively hit the deadline/hours budget with only about 10-20 hours over.
It's not half the work. At the end of the day I have to sell it. In order to put more features and offer more we need to sell it. We need clients, programmers don't care about that. Which I understand, why should they it's not their job.
I wanted to offer equal equity the same as my partner and I, but due to personality differences I don't believe we can. My partner and I invested $30k into the startup including paying him on a contractual basis, how do you give someone equal equity after this?
With that low a rate of engagement, depending upon the topic material I'd be concerned with the amount of time it will take even a very competent developer to refresh their memory and get back "into the zone" on this particular product.
Sometimes, it's easier to have more work, simply because you can stay focused on it long enough to get more done and/or to think about it more thoroughly/deeply.
It's just one item, but perhaps take a look at whether you could adjust your development cycle for this fellow to accomodate more useful, efficient sustained bursts.
(Again, I don't know what the specific work in question is. The pertinence of my comment is therefore unclear.)
P.S. Your use of the word "dick" indicates that you are already emotionally engaged in this topic. Beware. No one's Mister Spock, but if you're letting your emotions lead, you may be heading for a mess. Also, if I were the developer and saw your use of the word "dick", our relationship would be over.
In short, you seem to be dragging some of your own baggage and/or faults into this.
I've asked only 1-5 hours per week from this individual. I've managed our frontend dev from an outsourced team in Poland and based on my same "can't program knows how many hours it takes" effectively hit the deadline/hours budget with only about 10-20 hours over.
It's not half the work. At the end of the day I have to sell it. In order to put more features and offer more we need to sell it. We need clients, programmers don't care about that. Which I understand, why should they it's not their job.
I wanted to offer equal equity the same as my partner and I, but due to personality differences I don't believe we can. My partner and I invested $30k into the startup including paying him on a contractual basis, how do you give someone equal equity after this?