This was a long scam then. Over a year of being gym partners, playing racquetball, drinking, all the stuff you would do with people you consider friends.
A YEAR! MF! That's meant to be long! FTS! A friend is someone you have validate of ten or twenty years of shared adventure. Treat everyone else as a possible friend (and likely tosser).
I'm a day late, but it seems that nobody has answered your question. Here are some things you could have done differently:
- Have a vesting schedule for your equity. This way if things go south, you'll have a certain portion of your equity vested.
- Negotiate a higher equity stake in the first place if you're playing such a founding role. In my opinion, if the product didn't exist before you joined the team, then you're a founder. Remember that we're looking at this with the benefit of hindsight.
- Made the agreement up front that you had control over the technical decisions since you have the expertise to make those decisions.
I should have done these things but I let my guard down. I'm in a city trying to be a new startup city so there was a lot of attention and money thrown at one of the first startups. Everything was given to us, everyone wanted to advise and invest in us. I assumed this community would make sure nobody on this team screws each other because it would look bad. I owned 10% outright but was dazzled by techstars into signing papers that put me on a vesting cliff.
