Would you participate in a startup for free?

Question

Startups

There are a lot of articles being written now about how small teams, working for an idea, achieve success in releasing mobile and web applications.
Question for programmers and designers: would you work for free in a startup for a share of the future, perhaps, profit? And why?

Answer 1

Only the founders (owners) of a startup can work for free. Other team members should receive money, even if they are promised a percentage of the profits in the future. Otherwise, their enthusiasm will quickly disappear.
If you are interested, you can read the article that I recently published on Habré. It talks about the experience of creating your own company, and there is information on the issue that interests you.

Answer 2

In most cases, I wouldn't.
Justify.
1. I have enough ideas of my own, each of which draws at least a million audience and a hundred barrels of gold. I don't need ideas, and, as it was rightly noted here, they are worth nothing.
2. Of the direct executors, the programmer invests the most. It is enough for a designer to draw a layout once, for a coder to make up a couple of main pages and make a toolkit, and a programmer writes, writes, writes...
3. ... writes, while, in fact, having no control over the process. What will happen if the people responsible for marketing will stupidly thump or, worse, do their best to portray violent activity in order to somehow justify their participation in the process?
It is logical that the partners should invest approximately equally. If I spend 100 hours on development, then let's say a marketer has to spend 100 hours on promotion/development/whatever. Then there are two options: either I blindly trust this person (which is unlikely), or I keep an eye on his activities (which most often brings him into a blind rage). I would not want to be in a situation where I worked for free for a couple of months, and then nobody needed it (because the partner failed his part of the task).
In other words, if you want to find free performers, first prepare your portfolio for demonstration. He came up with something, implemented it in such a way, it paid off for so much.
Until you fully understand what kind of person you are, no one will work with you for free.

Answer 3

Never in my life would I work only for a share (as a programmer). Perhaps he would have become with the option "salary (slightly below average) + share." Work only for a potential percentage of future profits - why? A startup will begin to receive a normal profit not earlier than in six months (if everything goes well). It turns out that I have to work for six months for free, at the risk of being left with nothing?
In my opinion, if the founders of a startup are so confident in their entrepreneurial skills, business model and idea, then they can either attract investments or take out a loan to pay their salaries. And keep the shares.

Answer 4

Having already worked in several startups, I will think 10 times before working in a startup again.

Answer 5

All greedy.
I would. If the theme coincided with what I'm interested in. If I already do it, why not do it in a team? More chances for results.
TC, look and it will be given.

Answer 6

I would. If I share the idea and there is confidence that the project manager is not an idiot.
Ideally, if I know this person or saw his work.
Why would you? I love programming, I love fresh ideas, I love working in a team.
There are a lot of people who are ready to work for an idea; but only a few can really be useful.