You can absolutely hire a rockstar dev, you need to think in terms of cashflow. You may not be able to pay a full year of salary, but you can still pay their full weekly salary as you go until you either run out of money or produce enough revenue to get to that point.
My last company had a technical cofounder who by all means was highly sought after and managed a team of 15-20 other developers in their primary dev consulting company meaning not only did they rock technically but also had biz acumen.
That individual worked FOR FREE for 3 years 25 hrs/week before collecting any money.
Don't ever think you have to pay a developer some market salary (or any salary) upfront. If the idea + company + team is legit, they will jump at the chance to be involved.
> Don't ever think you have to pay a developer some market salary (or any salary) upfront
"A developer" should definitely be paid market rates, otherwise they are a founder and should be rewarded accordingly with equity. I think this mindset of "getting work for free" is very damaging to the person holding the short end of the stick.
Someone who already has a well paid job, is willing to do a startup on the side, and actually be effective at it is extremely rare. What you'll usually find is someone at the beginning of their career that doesn't really understand what they are getting into.
"otherwise they are a founder and should be rewarded accordingly with equity."
Of course - as they were. My point was on cash money comp. Never said they worked for free hence their title of technical cofounder which implies equity.
"...and actually be effective at it is extremely rare. What you'll usually find is someone at the beginning of their career that doesn't really understand what they are getting into."
The onus is on the founding team to be sufficiently compelling to attract such a rare breed and if they execute correctly there is no short end to the stick to be had.
This is rich with availability bias. Just because you have had this experience doesn't mean that's possible for other people to do routinely. It sounds like a long tail event and using it as an example seems to be baseless. Congrats on being able to get him going, but I certainly wouldn't rely on that happening.
Availability bias is a behavioral psychology term.
> The availability bias is the human tendency to think that examples of things that come readily to mind are more representative than is actually the case.
Ahh, my apologies, and thank you for the correction on gender.
The only instance in which I would work for free for three years would be if the business was started by a household name for HN regulars and they had a very good track record of successful ventures. Anything less is ridiculous.
