You know your trade better than anyone. What stands between you and your first paying customer is a pile of filings, registrations and technology nobody ever explained to you. I clear all of it — for a fee, for a share of the business, or for a bit of both.
Fifteen of them. There are more.
Almost nobody gives up on a business because the idea was wrong. They give up because week three is an IRS form, week five is a bank that won't open the account without a document nobody named, and week nine is a website that looks like a scam because the email fails a check they've never heard of.
None of that is your business. It's the moat around it. And every hour you spend in there is an hour you're not doing the thing you're actually good at — the thing people were going to pay you for.
Most people don't get stuck because they're not capable. They get stuck because the work is unfamiliar, unrewarding, and arrives in no particular order, and there's nobody to ask whether the thing that just went wrong is normal.
None of it was interesting. All of it was necessary. That is exactly why you should hand it to someone who has already been through it with the scars to show for it.
Everything on that list was cleared for the products below. Entity, EIN, domain, DNS, mail that reaches an inbox, a site, payments, store accounts — done once each, properly, and now running.
Two of those are mine. The third belongs to someone else — which is the point. The work is the same either way.
You know the number before we start.
Scoped up front and paid in stages against work delivered. You keep every share of your business and owe me nothing afterwards. Best if you have some capital and want a clean transaction with nothing attached to it.
No cash. I take 2%.
You never get an invoice. I carry the cost of the build myself and hold a 2% stake, so I make money only if the business does. Best if you have the idea and the work ethic but not the runway — which describes most people worth backing.
A reduced fee, and 1%.
A smaller fee that covers the hard costs so I'm not quietly funding your business, plus a 1% stake so I'm genuinely in it with you afterwards. This is where most engagements land, and it's the honest default.
The 2% and 1% are the starting point for a normal build, and whatever we agree is written down before any work begins. Whichever route you choose: you own the company, the accounts, the domains and the code. Everything is registered in your name, not mine. If we part ways, you walk out with a working business and nothing to unpick.
I landed in this country in 1996 with two suitcases and not a cent to my name.
Thirty years later I've built a career here, raised a family here, and started my own companies here. Nobody handed me any of that.
But plenty of people showed me how something worked when they had no reason to, and honestly that's most of what the difference was. Two suitcases is the amount I started with. If that's roughly where you are, we'll get on fine.
Paul Johnston
Austin, Texas
A few sentences is plenty. What you do, who pays you for it today, and what's stopping you from doing it under your own name.
If it's something I can help with, we'll talk about which of the three ways makes sense. If it isn't, I'll tell you that straight away and point you at whoever is.
Thanks — your message is with me and I'll come back to you personally. One message a day per person keeps the spam out; you'll be able to send another tomorrow.
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