My 2c as a founder who's done both 50/50 and non-50/50 startups.
1. The gift need not be equity; cold, hard cash to solve this problem.
I had a side project that I decided to turn into a business when a co-founder became available. We wanted to do a 50-50 split and achieved this by "selling" the IP I had created to a new entity which had the 50-50 split. The cash can stay on the books as an Owner's Contribution (for LLC) or as a liability.
2. My first startup was 65/20/15. My current one is 50/50. The psychological implications of both are very interesting. When I had 65% control, I could ultimately make all the decisions, but the others definitely felt some resentment or maybe a better way to explain it was they thought well he's gonna ultimately do whatever he wants so there's no need to fight too hard about everything. It never felt like it too much convincing to discuss big decisions (nor did I necessarily get tons of input). These were very good friends and we managed it, but anytime there's an obvious veto power, it changes the character of any deliberations.
What 50-50 does besides the "feeling" of fairness is that it forces you to convince the other person that it a certain way. Knowing you cannot just trump someone, you must persuade someone else of the way to go. Both of us understand that there has to be a decision made, and we can never know 100% the right way to go, and sometimes we let one person "win" and vice-versa. It does add a lot of confidence that when we finally do move forward with a direction, everyone is 100% on-board. I would add it helps a lot if you and your co-founder have complementary roles (CTO/CEO) as that can create clear delineation on who gets to "trump" in certain cases. Always better to let the person who has to execute the decision make it!
1. The gift need not be equity; cold, hard cash to solve this problem.
I had a side project that I decided to turn into a business when a co-founder became available. We wanted to do a 50-50 split and achieved this by "selling" the IP I had created to a new entity which had the 50-50 split. The cash can stay on the books as an Owner's Contribution (for LLC) or as a liability.
2. My first startup was 65/20/15. My current one is 50/50. The psychological implications of both are very interesting. When I had 65% control, I could ultimately make all the decisions, but the others definitely felt some resentment or maybe a better way to explain it was they thought well he's gonna ultimately do whatever he wants so there's no need to fight too hard about everything. It never felt like it too much convincing to discuss big decisions (nor did I necessarily get tons of input). These were very good friends and we managed it, but anytime there's an obvious veto power, it changes the character of any deliberations.
What 50-50 does besides the "feeling" of fairness is that it forces you to convince the other person that it a certain way. Knowing you cannot just trump someone, you must persuade someone else of the way to go. Both of us understand that there has to be a decision made, and we can never know 100% the right way to go, and sometimes we let one person "win" and vice-versa. It does add a lot of confidence that when we finally do move forward with a direction, everyone is 100% on-board. I would add it helps a lot if you and your co-founder have complementary roles (CTO/CEO) as that can create clear delineation on who gets to "trump" in certain cases. Always better to let the person who has to execute the decision make it!