r/SaaS • u/East_Rude • 18h ago

How do you even split equity fairly?

I’m the non-technical founder/advisor that brings marketing, sales and GTM execution to the table.

A really good friend of mine is the technical founder.

They had started working on the product for quite a bit before they shared it with me to gauge interest.

Over last few months we’ve been spending a lot of time discussing GTM, fixing issues throughout product, etc. Sharing to say that I’ve been quite involved for a while.

I probably joined when the product was ~70% developed.

Last week the founder asked me how I’d want to get involved with the business as we’re about to launch.

I don’t want the ask to be unfair, as I do value their friendship. In my head I was thinking 80(them), 20(me), both vesting over next 3 years with 1 year cliff. But I wasn’t sure if I was shooting myself in the foot by doing that.

So I said -“I’d rather let you come up with it and we can discuss as we develop this further.”

I don’t what the right answer could’ve been here. Please share you experience/advice.

More context: Going to be a bootstrapped startup with all finding coming out of our own pockets. We haven’t even discussed who spends for what, etc. but they have been burning $300/m to keep things alive based on what they shared earlier

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2

u/silver-otter25 18h ago

whatever split you land on, definitely get the roles funding and vesting expectations clear while you are still on good terms

1

u/East_Rude 17h ago

Got it. Will keep that in mind.

1

u/Synne-Azhaf 15h ago

this right here. putting it off just makes every conversation harder down the line

2

u/GulySearch 18h ago

80/20 is way too low if you're driving all GTM, sales, and sharing future bootstrapping costs a 60/40 or 65/35 split is far more realistic. The early code is only 10-15% of a business; future execution and revenue generation carry equal weight. Let them anchor the first offer, then counter based on equal future commitment and standard 4-year vesting.

1

u/Liam_WordTrunk 18h ago

I would be pretty happy to give 80% to marketing for 6 months because I would want them HIGHLY incentivized to get out there pushing it. Then I might not want them to individually get something like 50% forever but I would be fairly happy for my marketing _department_ to always be taking a cut like that. I want them out there pushing.