&gt; If you raise more than a full-time salary&#x27;s worth of money, and that money is used to make a payroll that pays a prospective &quot;co-founder&quot;, they aren&#x27;t a co-founder. Treat them like an early employee.<p>I disagree; not everyone who&#x27;s qualified to be a founder is able to forego salary. It&#x27;s a big problem right now; otherwise awesome prospective founders have to be lured away from $150-200k&#x2F;yr jobs - and that&#x27;s really hard if your salary offer is $0. It&#x27;s a lot easier if you&#x27;re offering $100k - it&#x27;s not their market value, but it also allows them to more or less maintain their lifestyle.