Hello everyone, first time co-founder here. I&#x27;m at a point where I have to make a hard decision in my startup. I&#x27;ve been in a position where I felt like I kept giving and giving (to be fair, a lot of us felt that) but now comes a decision to give up something again, but which the result may have bigger repercussions in the future that are unclear to me.<p>Note, this post was cut short due to 2000 char limit, my full &quot;write-up&quot; here: http:&#x2F;&#x2F;pastebin.com&#x2F;fjQfiqp8<p>Background:
In my startup of 5-6, we have a founder (CEO) and I&#x27;m the co-founder (CTO). So far, I&#x27;ve worked on this project for about 9 months and I do everything technical (server setup, back-end [our core technology], front-end web design).<p>Problem:
We need to make payroll two more times before we can close a large seed round which will put to rest money problems for a long duration, but the problem here is getting these last two equity-for-cash lots before we get the big relief.<p>Now with options running out, one particular solution came up. Two contributors to our startup offered to put up the next lot, but in exchange they want &quot;co-founder&quot; status on top of the equity.
What I want to avoid is to have our say and leverage in the company not be proportionate to effort level put in when these two new &quot;co-founders&quot; are put into play.
Now the founder is okay with this because in the end, he still has the final say on everything (and it&#x27;s his wife), but as an &quot;outside player&quot; I have to go to bat for myself and make sure I don&#x27;t get screwed by letting these decisions go too easily.<p>TL;DR
As core co-founders, will giving up additional &quot;co-founder&quot; titles have potentially nasty consequences in the future (when everybody has their own opinions)?<p>If there&#x27;s anything else I can clear up, please let me know. Thank you for any advice or input!
Ask HN: Advice on a Hard Decision as First Time Co-Founder