[gregthompsonjr]

I politely declined their offer based on a lot of thought and a lot of consideration of your answers -- thank you all.

They texted me, asking for a decision. I texted back, letting them know that I'll pass but that I'll meet with them once a week for a little while to help them refine their MVP so they can communicate it to a developer. I figured it was a friendly offering of my expertise. I told them to feel free to utilize me in that regard if they'd like.

Instead of identifying the friendliness, one replied telling me that I'm either fully in or I'm out, implying that my offer was too half-assed for them. I was clear in saying that I passed on their offer to be one of their founders, so I didn't really understand what he wasn't clear on -- I plainly offered to help them refine their MVP strictly so they can execute as seamlessly as they could once in contact with another developer. I told them that when I received his response.

The other still hasn't said anything. And the one who initially responded hasn't replied to my last message. I'm assuming they're mad, although, that's not a very friendly way to reply, even after being rejected.

Now, I'm really glad I decided not to take on the role.

[jayhuang]

Reading halfway through this comment I wanted to suggest you to be more wary of lending your uncompensated time and expertise to people aside from family, friends, clients. Throughout the thread, I didn't notice anything to indicate that you have any sort of close relationship with these two. The issue is not being nice per se, it's the fact that A LOT of people do not value your time and expertise, especially when it's being given/offered for free. I'm probably coming off as very cynical but I've been through similar situations countless times and it ties in directly to many studies about humans valuing things they "lose" for much more than something being handed to them. I wrote a brief blog post on my ideas about that here: http://www.jayhuang.org/blog/giving-feedback/

After reading your whole comment, I have to agree you were incredibly lucky. I don't want to jump to any conclusions but from my experience, people whose attitudes become so fierce so quickly in this type of situation are often the same type of people that may be perfectly fine with screwing you over in the case your partnership ever finds success. Idea people are dime a dozen in this era, and many are desperate to find competent developers on the cheap to execute their idea. Some of them have a misconceived notion that their idea is pure gold and you are merely a replaceable resource (which of course, we all are to some extent, but the builder has a huge role in building a startup; arguably a larger role than any other person).

So again, congratulations on learning a good lesson at no cost. My favorite part about your comment is the fact they completely burned any chance they had of getting your advice/expertise for free (hopefully), so you can focus on the things/people that really matter.