What do developers want from an equity-only job?
lbrandy: Here's my initial concerns, reading your post and reading your posting on craigslist. You need avoid looking like a business guy with an idea (and without a clue) looking for a coder. I'd work very, very hard to avoid that because technical people will avoid you like the plague.1. How many other team members are there? This is a website we are building, right? What are all these other people doing to earn their equity? Am I the only technical person? Be honest, how much would I -really- need your non-technical staff to build and run this site on my own?2. Why am I not a founder? Why is this a "job"? Do I have a boss? Who is it? Why do I need one? Can I be fired?3. If I am the only technical person, do I have full control of the technology? If I tell you that going with Ruby was an awful idea, are you going to listen? If you are, I really should be the CTO. If you aren't, then it sounds like I have a boss.4. How much equity are we talking about? Do you think you can get a "coder" to build your website and add your features for a few % equity? Do you guys really understand how much you need a technical person? Or am I going to be viewed like an employee by a bunch of business guys with an "idea"? Are coders a commodity to you?5. If I was taking an equity-only job, it would be for founder-level only. Anything else, in my mind, would be silly. If this is -not- the case, you need to make it extremely compelling and work very hard at avoiding all the pitfalls, because you are already fighting the most difficult uphill battle there is.ETA: it took me awhile to write this, but even now, you'll see alot of posts by devs already "raging" against this concept as a bunch of "business guys" who appear to be severely underestimating and undervaluing technical contributes whilst simultaneously overvaluing their own contributions. If this is -not- the case, you have to work extremely hard because that's going to be the default position all technical people take.