Search and read on founder vesting and founder cap tables in places like Quora, Venturehacks and Ask The VC. Yes, having a part-time or passive shareholder wit

Search and read on founder vesting and founder cap tables in places like Quora, Venturehacks and Ask The VC. Yes, having a part-time or passive shareholder with 33% ownership can be a major no-no for raising external financing. Both 50/50% and 33/33/33% are often considered bad even with full-time co-founders. One thing you definitely should do is to honestly discuss this with your passive co-founder. Ask him, how low would he be willing to go if the 2 choices are not raising any financing and having his 33% or going down to 15/10/5/3/1% and having a smaller piece of a larger pie. Even if you do not have founder vesting in place (which you should discuss anyway) you can come to a gentlemen´s agreement. Over the coming 3-4 years if things go well for you 2 full-time guys, you will be putting much more effort into the company anyway, so you should get more. Either rethink the original agreement or award you 2 significant additional options. Related: http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2011/05/09/the-co-founder-mythology/ http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2011/05/09/the-co-founder...