ccitizen

I am not totally convinced that he knows the space well myself.

I find myself trying to justify sticking with them, maybe negotiate a lower working time/commitment for the same pay (provided that they cannot afford to increase the pay) in exchange of losing this friendship and potential network.

Although I still think I'd be shortchanged.

Another worrying trend I feel is that while I'm probably 'employee #1', I find myself doing more architecture/design work than the technical co-founder as he is a relatively new programmer.

What would be a good way to ensure that I do not burn bridges while negotiating and/or rejecting?

I'm a freelance developer.

The amount of money that they offered will not last me more than a week.

The company is in the space of business intelligence and their customers would mostly be corporate/startup owners.

I'm not crazy over the idea, but it does sound viable but then again there's so many competitors in this field.

The only saving grace is that I find that the CEO guy with his previous experience managing a medium-sized company may be able to use his connections to get customers.

And the startup environment where I am in (Singapore) may be advantageous to him where angels and government grant givers take previous working experience before giving out cash.