Ask HN: Reasonable equity to ask for

Hello HN,

I joined a startup about 8 months ago as a software engineer. I was the only developer on the team at the time until we hired someone to help me out around 2 months ago. The founders have been working in the company for almost a year before I joined but on a separate product which didn't generate much revenue and wasn't a huge success.

I have been getting paid for the past 2 months at a small fraction of my normal salary (2k where I can easily make 8k a month) as the company got accepted to an incubator. I put in ~100 a week in the past 2 months and ~40 for the past 6 months. I didn't sign any contracts with them though so the IP rights of the code remains with me.

The founders have been mainly idea people and focused on business aspect of the company. They promised me equity back when we started but we never put into writing. They each have invested 15k of their own personal money in the company though.

I brought up the equity and they didn't like the idea and they said they have to analyze different things.

I'm wondering what is a reasonable equity demand? I'm expected to take the role of CTO in the company. I have the following options:

- Go without equity which is ridiculous

- Demand for equity and if they didn't give it to me, I'll quit and continue working on the project on my own. (they don't have any access to the code and I'm not under contract; also they don't have enough money to take legal action)

- Stick with whatever equity they offer although I'm not sure how much I should ask for.

I think anything below 25% is not reasonable.

UPDATE

- If I quit that is going to delay the launch by at least a year.

- There is another developer on the team (he is not receiving any equity) and I can easily convince him to quit and help me out.