When I was in college, I did a startup with my brother who was living on the other side of the country in New York. While in school, we began to get early tract

When I was in college, I did a startup with my brother who was living on the other side of the country in New York. While in school, we began to get early traction. Being naive, he talked me in to dropping out after finishing off the semester. And so I moved in with him. I got to work right away, but my brother continued his full-time job, which we had planned he would do for a short period of time. Note - this agreement was informal, nothing was formalized. We also agreed that he would work as much as he could on the startup on the side, and pay me a stipend to cover my living expenses + spending money as long as he was still working full-time. As it turns out, business is business, even with family members that you trust. He ended up almost never helping me on the startup. He didn't quit his full-time job, and blamed me for not creating enough value for the startup. This blew my mind since I had done everything (design, development, sales, marketing, social media), when all he did was chip in 10k or so for 4-5 months of runway. He left me to do all of the work, and legally I couldn't do anything about it. Finally, he stopped paying me. The worst part is feeling exploited by someone you love and care about. I have no doubt he would have committed to the startup had I gotten significant traction. I'm actually glad it didn't work out, because I would have just probably been screwed over even more down the road. It's sad knowing that family will even do this - burn a close relationship just to get dirt-cheap equity in a startup. "If it goes well, commit to it, if not, you just saved 60k by not having to hire a full time engineer. Plus you won't have to quit your high paying job, so there's nothing to lose!" - I feel like this is what went through his head. I can't speak towards getting screwed on an idea, but if I learned anything from this it is that nobody can be trusted. Sure, I'll start another business one day and will be vulnerable to my cofounders, but never to this degree. Get it on paper, always. And constantly ask yourself, what is the worst thing that could go wrong at this point in time. Always be prepared for it to happen. If you aren't open to this, you probably shouldn't start a business, because sometimes things go even worse than you might think is possible.