If you start working 6 months before your cofounder, the simplest thing to do is just to give everyone equal shares and the same vesting schedule, but if you want to be tricky about it (you shouldn&#x27;t), just set the earlier founder&#x27;s vesting schedule forward a bit.<p>My take is that there&#x27;s no such thing as a part-time founder, but if you really want to allow someone to be a founder while they have a full-time job elsewhere, just do the opposite thing: don&#x27;t start their vesting until they&#x27;re full time.<p>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>Launching your MVP shouldn&#x27;t have much to do with whether someone is or isn&#x27;t a co-founder. If your MVP is fabulously successful and de-risks the project, don&#x27;t bring on a co-founder; bring on an early employee. If it isn&#x27;t successful, ignore it in equity calculations.