Hey fellas, Ive been asked to develop a project for a percentage of the project. To sum it up, its a web crawler mash-up type deal. I fear that it may fall through in the end of course. This will be my first team project not among friends and I wonder two things;
What percentage if I'm the only developer is fair?
If I were to ask for a good-faith-commitment payment, how many hours of my time should I add up to request?
Thanks!
Percentage of what? Percentage of underlying company, of profit or of turn over for some period of time or percentage of the product when it is sold?
How likely your product is make big bucks? If probability is high, then a smaller percentage may be sufficient.
How many other people are there involved and what is their role? Are you involved in planning, project architecture and design, or just development? All these matter in choosing a fare share for the work you put in. As for asking a commitment payment, this might not necessarily be based on a number of hours, but on certain milestones that you would have to discuss and establish together with the other people involved - after all, delivering a quality product within a target timeline would be more important than the number of hours you spend on the project.
With regards to going forward with the project in the first place, you should ask yourself this:
If you are the only programmer on the project, then what is everyone else bringing to the table? What is the revenue potential of the project? Does your gut feeling tell you that it's going to succeed? Is it something that you want to spend all those hours on?
If, after thinking about the above you still want to go forward with the project, then ask yourself these questions:
How good are you, and how hard would it be for your partners to replace you with someone else? If you are really good then ask for a high percentage, otherwise a lower one. What is the minimum percentage that would make you interested? Have they said a number? Does it sound fair?
With regards to a good faith payment that should probably be based on what you need to survive. If this is just a sparetime project, then asking for an upfront payment will just lower the percentage you end up getting, so think about that too.
Personally, unless I felt like I actually had some ownership of the project and idea I would ask to be paid. If the people who actually own the idea have done their research and know they can make at least something off of their effort then they should be more then happy to pay you a fixed salary because it will save them money in the long run.
If they balk, they never expected to make money in the first place.