6/2022: he pitched me to be CEO of his venture, I wasn’t interested as I was committed to a very good U.K. startup ( Revolut equivalent ). That didn’t work out due to cultural fit.
12/2022: I was soloing then he pitched me to join his venture. He said it wasn't a job so i thought it means partnership. I was interested so I fly to Asia so work on this in immersion. I didn’t know what the deal was. Simply I was trying to work out how legit this is and provide values. I only took $1000/ month to cover food and living expense. My market rate is £90k/y. Along the way, i shared all my knowledge from working with Revolut team and previous startup. I said I’m looking for partner and aim is to make $100M in personal return in 7 years. He thought $100M was a lot but I said I would make him $500M at least given the time he spent in it already (the research project was proposed in 2011, 2021 he incorporated the company), if we don’t get that magnitude, the ratio of our return is based on our time. He remained quiet. And I believed he held a different preconcieved idea but was never clear to me.
He was pretty wavy and vulnerable, nothing was working. He was fairly undriven, depressed and needed a lot of hand holding. Coaching even. He can’t articulate his vision and make a compelling road map and offer to investors. And is constantly frustrated that other people don’t see. I was 25, he 42. I came in, think critically through the deck, pull out his vision into words. Set 10x the valuation of TAM, drastically simplified and upgrade the company’s value propositions and kicked start the motion of talking to investors. It was moving and the team finally gained optimism.
Then after two months of work, he pitched me at 4% with 2 years of my time commitment with a base of $30k/year and him at $50k/year. In my mind, this is a huge opportunity cost. Mind you, I’m a full engineering scholar graduate from top1,2 uni in the UK with proven market rate at £90k and has work experience at top startup in the UK.
Bro, get paying customer asap