[coffee]

This is pathetic...

"...can sell ice to an eskimo..."

But can't sell a programmer, and college friend, on the idea of not being a "dick" to them? Sounds like the two founders have zero skill but do have HUGE egos.

They're paying him $25/hour below market rate, he's got a house and family, they have yet to provide him with any equity in the company after he's worked 100 hours on the project, they refer to him as a "kinda founder" and they're getting a special discount because they're college chums.

Are you sure the programmer is the one being the dick?

[kamaal]

Actually one of the things I discovered while working with someone close/relative. Firstly they assume that you sort of come for a cheap price and won't have qualms or complains working for peanuts.

Secondly they assume you are some sort easy punchbag to offload all their anger in case something goes wrong for which you aren't even remotely responsible. Somehow its assumed since you are close to them you won't mind taking all that.

Part of what really pisses me off is, they feel its OK to make profit out of your work. But consider it some sort of a selfish action from your end when you expect to get paid for the work you do. I don't mind doing extra work for free sometimes. But when that sort of becomes a norm and you are expected to be the sacrificial goat for their profit, you must just politely call it quits.

These days you can earn a lot of money working for yourself. No point in doing donkey work for others profit while you are eating grass yourself.

[richardjortega]

Why do you think we have "HUGE egos"?

I'm trying to be open and candid. I just want to have a great startup team and that's why I chose him - yes because we were "college chums" and I thought he was one of the top backend devs I ever saw. How does trying to create a startup and dealing with growing pains and situation like this make be a bad person.

I don't want to "sell" my programmer on a vision, I want him to see what the opportunity is. I would love to give him full founder equity like stated (3-5% of the 20% fonders share - same as us!). I just want to figure out if we are a good fit or not, his work is amazing, we have difficulty working together.

I feel that I'm tied to one developer because of what stage we are at (prefunding) but we may raise capital or be in a notable accelerator. I want him with us, but I want someone I can work with too.