25% to hire someone at a company making 1 million in revenue sounds insane. Assuming you're running some kind of SaaS business you probably have a valuation nor

25% to hire someone at a company making 1 million in revenue sounds insane. Assuming you're running some kind of SaaS business you probably have a valuation north of 10 million. So you'd basically be giving this guy $2.5 million. Is he really better than selling 20% of your company and hiring the best people $2 million can buy? Assuming you're not totally insane, the only reason you can be considering this guy at 25% is you believe he has magical industry connections that are going to add many millions to your bottom line. He's basically a sales guy. So I'd give him a standard sales guy deal - some percentage of new business brought in for first X years ... if he's really good give him a small piece of equity too, like 2.5%. That way he's properly incentivized to bring his industry connection through. Also, you should probably seek out some reputable advisors and not ask questions like this on the internets.