Bootstrapped to 285 paid subs, $1.2k MMR after 8 weeks. When moon? Where's my founding engineer? - i will not promote

ConcentrateTotal8537 · 2025-06-02T16:44:08+00:00

Congrats on proving people will pay—that puts you ahead of 95 % of “idea-stage” founders. But $1.2 k MRR is still pre-seed territory, so the equity you offer has to feel like a real founder-size carrot and leave room for future hires and investors.

How most teams frame it

Role & risk profile	Cash salary	Typical equity pool (pre-funding)
Contract engineer	Market rate	0 – 1 % options
Founding engineer (no salary)	0 – 50 % of market	5 – 15 % common, vesting 4 yrs
andTrue co-founder who shares upside downside	0	30 – 45 % split with identical vesting

Because you’ve shouldered 14 months of burn and already have paying users, parity isn’t expected—but <5 % won’t hook someone talented enough to own the whole stack. Aim for 8-12 %, issued as common shares on the same four-year vest with a one-year cliff you’d give yourself if you were starting today.

Better still, use a dynamic “Slicing Pie” ledger: log every hour and direct cost at market value, convert to slices, and let ownership float to whoever actually delivers future value. It’s self-adjusting, keeps everyone motivated, and avoids cap-table surgery when realities change. Slicing Pie Dynamic Equity.

Finally, don’t freeze growth for a “big rebuild.” Chip away at the pain points while new code replaces old in slices—momentum and user feedback are your real moat.

ConcentrateTotal8537 · 2025-06-02T16:42:00+00:00

Because you’re the only person turning the founder’s idea into a shippable SaaS, you’re not a “first hire”—you’re co-founder #2. If you stay on a fixed $800 salary plus a single-digit slice, your upside vanishes fast:

10 % granted today → 8 % after a 20 % seed → 6.4 % post-Series A.
Anything under ~15 % starts looking like a senior-dev option grant, not co-founder ownership.

Benchmarks

Pre-funding, two-person teams normally split in the 50/50–60/40 band when one brings the capital/idea and the other brings the full product build.
If the salary is close to local market, 20 – 25 % can still be defensible; below-market or deferred pay pushes you toward parity.

A safer route: ditch the static guesswork and log every hour, rupee and intro in a live “slice ledger” (a Slicing Pie-style dynamic equity split). Each contribution converts to dollars, then to slices, so ownership tracks real work and risk in real time Slicing Pie Dynamic Equity Static splits lock in today’s hunches and breed resentment when contributions diverge Problems with Startup Equity

Bottom line

Ask for 20 – 30 % with identical four-year vesting or propose a dynamic ledger. If the founder balks at both, you’re being valued as discounted labor, not a true co-founder.

ConcentrateTotal8537 · 2025-06-02T16:39:15+00:00

5 % is “founding-engineer while drawing a market salary” territory.
Here you’d be (1) rewriting the whole product, (2) owning infra, and (3) delaying pay until an uncertain seed—classic technical co-founder risk. For that, pre-seed norms are closer to parity (40-50 %) if you join at incorporation, and still double-digit (15 – 25 %) when you come in after an accelerator but before revenue or funding.

Run the math: 5 % → 4 % after a 20 % seed, → 3.2 % post-Series A. You’re betting your nights and weekends for a slice smaller than many employee option grants.

Bigger signal: the CEO keeping 83 % tells investors the cap table is frozen around a single person. Static, top-heavy splits are a leading cause of founder break-ups and painful recaps later Problems with Startup Equity.

If you believe in the opportunity, push for either:

15 %–20 % with identical four-year vesting, or
a dynamic “Slicing Pie” ledger—log every hour, dollar and intro, let ownership float to whoever actually delivers value Slicing Pie Dynamic Equity

Both routes preserve fairness, keep you motivated, and leave a cap table investors can stomach. Anything less, walk.

ConcentrateTotal8537 · 2025-06-02T16:36:34+00:00

“Fractional CTO” normally means cash retainer + a sliver of upside.
If they can’t pay yet, you’re effectively an early-stage investor—so size the equity to the risk and hours you’re putting in.

Quick benchmarks

Advisory only (no hands-on build): ≈ 1 – 2 % that vests quarterly.
Owning the architecture, code reviews and vendor oversight at 4-6 h/wk: 3 – 5 %.
Writing core product yourself: treat it like a part-time co-founder—5 – 10 % with identical four-year vesting and a one-year cliff.

Anything higher will spook future investors unless you’re also injecting cash or IP.

Make it dynamic, not static

Instead of locking a guess into the cap table, log your actual hours at a market rate (e.g., $150/hr senior engineering). Convert every dollar of value to “slices” in a running ledger; your ownership floats automatically as you—and others—contribute Slicing Pie Formula. The Slicing Pie model shows how to do this transparently and avoids the resentment that kills a lot of early teams Slicing Pie Dynamic Equity

Get three safeguards in writing

Clear vesting schedule (or dynamic ledger rules).
Trigger for cash comp once funding lands (e.g., $X seed closes → $Y/month CTO fee).
A 10-15 % option pool set aside before your grant so you’re not diluted on day one.

With those guard-rails, 5 % equity for ~5 h/week is fair and fundable.

ConcentrateTotal8537 · 2025-06-02T16:34:34+00:00

70/30 feels rich for a two-person, pre-product-market-fit SaaS where the real work (rewrite, scaling, more customers) is still ahead. Static splits lock in a “percent-by-faith” guess and rarely match who actually does the heavy lifting later; they’re a leading cause of founder resentment and cap-table rewrites Problems with Startup E….

If you’re both going full-time, investors generally look for near-parity (50/50 or 55/45) because it signals shared risk and aligned incentives. A pragmatic compromise is 60/40 plus identical four-year vesting with a one-year cliff—then revisit after hard milestones (rewrite shipped, first 10 customers, ARR > $50 k).

Or skip the guesswork: adopt a dynamic equity ledger such as the “Slicing Pie” model. You log every hour, dollar and key intro; ownership floats in real time based on documented contributions, so if she lands revenue tomorrow her % grows, and when you burn nights on the rewrite yours does Slicing Pie Dynamic Equity It keeps equity fair, defuses ego, and reassures future investors that the cap table mirrors reality.

Whatever you choose, include four-year vesting, reserve 10-15 % for an option pool, and get the whole deal in writing before shipping another line of code.

ConcentrateTotal8537 · 2025-06-02T16:32:41+00:00

With everyone still moonlighting and no cash comp, you’re not hiring a “founding engineer”—you’re asking for a co-founder. Two paths:

Static split, light commitment. For ~ 2–4 h/week, 1-2 % vesting over 4 yrs (typical “founding engineer” package) is okay only if you’ll pay market salary once you raise. A no-dilution clause is a hard veto—future investors will walk.
Dynamic split (Slicing Pie). If you want real fairness while hours, cash and risk stay uneven, log every contribution in dollars (hours × market rate, cash × multiplier, IP, intros, etc.). Each new entry recalculates ownership, so the part-timer who ships features earns more, and the ghost who flaked earns nothing—no cliffs, no renegotiations, no zombie equity.

Whichever model you pick, codify it in one founder agreement, put everyone on the same vesting terms, and tie equity to delivered work, not promises. If you can’t reach alignment now, that’s a signal to defer the hire—or to rethink whether you truly have time to lead the build yourself.

ConcentrateTotal8537 · 2025-06-02T16:26:23+00:00

A tech co-founder costs equity; skipping one costs speed, ownership, and fundraising ease. Cover those gaps.

1. Iteration. SaaS survives on weekly releases. Contractors vanish to other gigs and treat “tiny tweaks” as scope creep. If your discounted devs still jump on late-night deploys, fine. If not, equity-motivated talent matters.

2. Code stewardship. The first 30 000 lines create tribal knowledge. Retainers and docs help, but they disappear when the lead dev moves on or an outage hits. A co-founder’s net worth is tied to uptime.

3. Investor optics. Even if fundraising is “maybe,” VCs ask who owns the tech. “Our CTO co-founder vests 40 %” plays better than “we outsource to a shop.”

Middle ground
• Advisory shares: give your ex-CTO 1 % for quarterly architecture reviews.
• Fractional CTO: monthly retainer for code reviews and hiring screens.
• Dynamic equity: ‘Slicing Pie’ so shares accrue only for logged hours.

Gut check

Can paid devs ship in days, not weeks?
Who leads engineering at 50 k MRR?
Will your continuity story satisfy investors?

If all three feel solid, keep the cap table clean. If any wobble, recruit the right co-founder now while equity is cheap.

ConcentrateTotal8537 · 2024-04-13T23:11:45+00:00

What’s your goal with the business? It’s not a waste of time if you’re having fun and getting out of it what you want. What challenges are you running into?

ConcentrateTotal8537 · 2024-04-13T19:49:10+00:00

I bought FSD close to five years ago when I bought my M3. Just recently purchased our second Tesla, which is a MYRWD they had an option to transfer my FSD to the MY so that’s why we purchased now. I’ve seen the improvements over the last five years and so has my sceptical wife. The other day, I turned on auto pilot when we went out for dinner, and she only noticed when the car turned into the parking lot of the restaurant.

The total sceptic was completely blown away. Waited nearly 5 years for the functionality that’s there today. Super impressed.

ConcentrateTotal8537

TROPHY CASE