Incenting an individual in a startup

[bartlebee]

I am about 9 months into my startup and have learned some lessons the hard way. The main learning experience was giving my "business partner" 25% of the company for essentially no consideration in the business to start with. Fast forward 9 months and he is signing back over his shares after a few tense meetings.

My question involves the best way to incent an individual in a startup. Specifically, I need a graphic designer to take the business to the next level. I have found an individual that is very talented not only in design, but also in marketing which is a great combo. I want to make him feel empowered and driven to see the company succeed (especially since he has been approached by other startups in the past which have fizzled out), but I'm not sure the best way to incent him. I don't have a lot of capital left to work with, so my thought was to give him a portion of the company instead.

My question - is this the best way to incent him, or is there a better approach? Again, money is tight so that is not an option.

Thanks in advance

[Southern_Lenders]

Tell him that if he wants to be a partner, that he needs to pay you "X" amount of money over "X" periods of months. Every partner should have their own pound of flesh in the game, otherwise they have nothing to lose, and wont really care what happens to your company.

I have two guys that are interested in joining our company, but they have no money set aside (that i know of), so I'm thinking about putting them on a payment plan.

[theperkcard]

Agreed. No skin in the game leaves people with nothing to lose should things go south.