Me: Technical contributor from coder to manager a team of devs. Will need to travel across the world (and ready to do so) to make this work. Full time with no pay (leaving 6 figure job for this).
Him: Main Visionary, came up with idea, documented scenarios, conducted some sort of user study. Will supply seed funding - 10-15k/month. Part time until company can sustain both of us. Can be the CEO, good at generating connections with non-tech world.
I looked at the equity calculator[1] and it gave me 55-45% split in his favor without considering his investment. Per Chris Dixon[2], initial seed investment should be treated as a loan converted into equity at time of external funding at the same rate. We don't ever want to take external investment given that he's rich enough, so he's not interested in this model even if I agree to some upside while converting loan to equity.
Having all said and done, he's ok with something in the range of (55-60%) for him, (20-25%) for me and 20% for key employees. I just _feel_ this is too low for me given the kind of sacrifice I am putting in - several folks we are trying to hire to help from a tech perspective are hard to get, as always, and I have a track record of understanding other people's visions and running with them (not too good with coming up with ideas myself)
References:
[1] http://foundrs.com/calculator/index.php
[2] http://cdixon.org/2009/08/23/dividing-equity-between-founders/
Edited for formatting
by Andrey
Azimov