[brudgers]

"If prototype gets traction and scales..."

How is that going to happen if the business partner is working a day job and waiting for Godot?.

Products don't sell themselves. Customers don't provide their own customer service, etc. Having final say is just having a non-technical opinion, it's not a real commitment. A founder who puts up cash is nice, but not a substitute for sweat, and is best treated as a loan rather than exchanged for equity.

I am not saying the roses won't grow, but I don't see the scenario as ideal for either partner - the employee/employer relationship is well below ideal.

[vik1211]

It sounds like you're more of a proponent of Hacker doing a work-for-hire or one off freelance project for a fee -- as a way to avoid the inherent employer/employee antagonism from the get go?

[brudgers]

It's not so much that as that I don't see the structure of the relationship being entirely consistent with the intended outcome.

There's no expression of trust on the part of the business partner when putting up the money is the sole basis for having final say on technical matters. Don't get me wrong, it might work out fine with the right individual.

But there are two other reasonably likely scenarios:

() A gung-ho technical person who becomes frustrated by having their ideas and opinions overuled by a non-technical person. And in the original scenario, the non-technical person is not working flat out to make the product take off.

() A not so gung-ho technical person who is mainly collecting a paycheck until the money runs out. This may be a later edition of the first or someone who comes onboard with that idea - keeping in mind that the business partner plans on spending their time at another job.

It's not the money, it's the passive model of investment that to me makes success look less likely. Or to put it another way, why wouldn't the sort of technical person who can conjure up a product out of a text file want to team up with a business person who will sell a million of them before a line of code is written?

Or at least a business partner who is trying to sell a million of them before any code is written?

Being in it together really requires being in it at the same time or a track-record of trustworthiness.

Good luck.

[vik1211]

Awesome points.