tech-company, startup-costs, lean-startup, customer-developmentRecently, a startup contacted me in order that I build their mobile application based on a new concept.
They mainly want to offer me 2% of the company (some parts) and 20K (dollars) to build their whole app.
As an experienced developer, I estimated their project to one year for all introduced features to be achieved.
The issue:
I’m not really convinced about the concept, although a pretty interesting one.
So I judge 2% as being a “joke” for being the unique FullStack developer on this kind of complex project.
I like to work based on Lean Startup philosophy.
But they told me: “We don’t want anyone to steal our idea, so we won’t share it to anyone except you and us. We KNOW that many people all over countries would LOVE AND USE our product as soon as the app is released”.
They don’t want to hear about validated learning, the quick user feedbacks, main startups reasons for failure etc.
They are in the myth that a great idea in THEIR mind = a great success.
How should I behave?
Would anyone here cancel this kind of offer?
Run because:
the founders are inexperienced and don’t grok that they should sell first (or at least find a gullible investor first) then build
no market validation is huge risk for everyone involved - for all you know you’ll work a year for $20k and end up with no product market fit to show for it
the generous 2% package they’re offering you is laughable
I suggest never .As 80% startups have only concept and they didn’t know how to proceed after the product developed. If they fail all faults goes to developer even if they fail in marketing then they also blame it to developer.2 % share is only a myth .If they succeed they hire some one else on salary .
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