Wants to partner 50/50 but doesn’t bring enough to the table

I have been working on developing a website/application, and own the domain, and have done a bunch of design/development work, research, planning/brainstorming, etc. Into a company that has not been registered as a business in any way so far (it’s just a concept, with some design assets and a bit of code and a domain and web server that I’ve owned/ran for 3+ years).

I received an offer from someone who wanted to “partner” and go 50/50 on the project (that they have had 0 involvement in thus far). I agreed that we would explore the idea and see what they could bring to the table and had to offer for their proposed 50%.

I never got a clear answer other than they had access to a datacenter where they could stand up some servers, and had a background in business.

The next day they sent me information to a server they stood up and I threw some basic html/css/php files up to test the apache and other technical stuff with the server, related to hosting a webpage.

I have come to the conclusion that they don’t bring enough value to take 50% of something only I have worked on so far, and have other pending partnership offers coming in.

Am I clear to move forward without him and register the business and everything as planned, or move on with other partnership opportunities?


  • What capacity are they working on in the business if you partner.

    Also you mention “they” is this an individual or a company that is proposing the partnership?

  • “I have come to the conclusion that they don’t bring enough value to take 50%”

    There you go, you made your decision. Now execute your decision and either renegotiate or move on.

  • I was in a very similar position a few years ago. I was would be doing all the technical work and the other guy was going to do the sales (i.e. go off and have comfy meetings/chats whilst I worked 20+ hours/day to build a high performance b2b product from scratch).

    I initially entertained the idea, but luckliy there was always something that stopped us from going ahead, many times it was just the company name or company we wanted was already taking, etc. Six months passed of this kind of hurdles and during that time I did my own thing and created the the first product iteration.

    After realising just how much time I put in – and seeing I didn’t need the other guy – I am glad I didn’t give him 50% for nothing. It might have been less stressful to have someone to talk to along the way but ultimately that is not worth 50%, especially when today I manage both the technical side (95% of effort) as well as sales (5% effort). Oh and 2 years later I’m no longer working 20+ hours a day.

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