Hi. I need some practical advice on how to deal with a specific situation which I am sure lot of you would have faced too. I had an idea for a business collaboration on a niche that I have some practical experience with. I approached someone whose work ethic I admired (worked with her in a past job) but she has put disappointedly little effort into the work. In fact even when we had clear instructions before our meetups, she would come to those meetings with not even half the work done and would actually comment on how much stuff I had done and that I needed to relax!

We are in the preliminary phases of our business but when it came to estimating how much effort we can both spend on this while keeping our day jobs, she is only willing to spend a few hours every week. She has some skills which are complementary to mine so her skillset will come in handy but it’s the effort and dedication part which is worrying. It is likely that if I see any chance of success I will jump in fully and commit myself to this and leave my day job which I anticipate she won’t do. How can equity be divided in this scenario fairly? I am dreading this conversation because initially I was going for an equal split.

PS. Someone else has expressed huge interest in what we are doing and our plan was to welcome them on board too. They have more of a similar background as of myself and would speed up the process of launching this business. So if this 3rd party also joins, then it becomes even more vital to have clear responsibilities and vesting in place so that no one feels they are being taken advantage of.