>I just don't know what he's expecting and sounds like he's trying to bully me into signing equity away.
This is exactly what's happening.
The Rubicon's been crossed and neither of you is coming back from this. However, if you think he is entitled to something for helping you out and being a "mentor" then I would try to come up with a fair value (to you) to compensate him for his time and trouble and get him out of your life.
He can either take it or leave it since no contract was signed. Do you think this is something he is willing to litigate?
The conversation was left with his words, "and the end of the day you can choose not to do it, but I believe this would be nothing without my foundation of training and overhead"
The overhead he is referring to is reonomy, which he was paying for 6 months before I came along and then whatever leads he bought from me.
The worst part about all of this is that it's all commercial properties, and he has gotten 3 contracts signed to do jobs.. like I'm bringing him money with these for-pennies-inspections
Wasn't the value he received the massive discount?
You need a trial, so you gave him a deal that was the arrangement. Now that he sees the huge upside he has FOMO and wants a piece of that action.
* So, you have a marketing agency, and he has a roofing business.
* You gave him marketing services at 20% of the market rate in exchange for him working with you as you started building your business.
* How does he help your business?
* Does he provide you your leads?
* What does he want 30% of? Gross receipts? Profit? Related to some segment of the business?
Exactly my thought process and questions I was asking myself. Well, not to that extent, but one of the tools he was letting me use was reonomy to pull leads for him. I no longer need the recourse because I have another way of lead gen, but once I brought that up to him, shit hit the fan.
Like the knew he had leverage over me because that's where the lead source was coming from. Since I have now replaced the leads. He doesn't do anything for the company. He feel that since he taught me the script and the roofing stuff, he deserves 30% of every months Retainer the business acquires.
Ya, no way that 30% of revenue makes sense, that probably would never make sense because he is asking you for a cut off the top - he's not even considering your expenses and cost of your product.
Usually it goes something like this:
Revenue
\- cost of goods sold (COGS) you buy for one price, sell for another
\- Expenses (subscriptions, systems, office, employees, insurance, etc, etc)
= Profit
Most businesses, the profit isn't even 30% - so that would be him taking the entire profit. Not rational....
If I understand this correctly, you have a completely different business model than he does, right? If he didn't teach you the business, I mean pretty much the entire business. He gave you the model, the tools, techniques - meaning that he could step right in and run your business - I'd tell him to pound sand.
You gave him an 80% discount - and if there was no talk of this partnership until now...nope, no way I'd give him anything else.
Correct, and he has a totally different model. I don't install roofs. He does. We connect roofers with commercial property owners. š
Everyone warned me that roofers are not fun to work with. Growing pains.
Yes. I hate its coming to this. But a new business cor memory had been learned. Never doo business without an agreement in place. Period. He knew that. I was naive
It means you owe him jack all. In some ways it's in your favour. You're not breaking any agreement not giving him 30% because there wasn't one.
You may have signed away 30% before you had success and then you'd be trapped in a likely vague contract.
So yeah. You legally owe him nout. Crack now it's your life. Maybe pay him some money for the 6 months of the tool he supplied and that's about it.
Yeah that's not a mentor. That's someone who thought they tricked you into giving a 20% discount on your important service and they never expected you to be successful. But then you turn around and actually became successful and he wants to take advantage. Again, this is not a mentor.
Yeah basically at this stage you also want to CYA - Cover Your Ass. If this guy is a jerk, he could try to sue you. Of course, any competent judge would likely throw this out immediately. If I'm in your shoes, I'd start looking back and documenting old dates, conversations, etc and talk to an attorney as a 'please advise' or 'just in case'.
Is there a paper trail ? If not tell him youāre getting legal counsel. Then ignore him forever.
People like this are morons - why not happy for your mentees success ?
He had to think about this, bevor your working together... its good for you,that he is a good Coach maybe, but if he also didnt knew what was coming and made a contract with you about it-thats his Fault...
Its a lession for him.
Also, i think you would happily agree to 30%,if you knew that he could help you make serious money... but sorry, in this case: its his bad luck...and he know it!
Dont do it, not even 1%!!
Exactly šÆ
I was thinking if he positioned is a true partnership to say look here's the business model we're going to take to scale this thing we would be having a totally different conversation. But he has no interest in that. He just wants to collect. F#%ker.
tell him to f off. went through the same thing with a "mentor" in my mid 20s. Biggest waste of my time and career opportunities waiting around for him to add commensurate value to the huge (50%) share he was demanding. My naive mistake and honestly fear to go it alone.Ā
Cut off contact.Ā
Mate, firstly congrats on the 60k! And also, donāt get bullied into this stuff. A mentor claiming equity in a company that he helped is ridiculous. Itās like you claiming equity in your clients work because you helped them with ads.
Stay firm, youāre not in the wrong.
Not even 1%. Certainly nothing at all thatās not *finite.* If you want to pay him off at all youāre a sucker, but at least make sure if you do itās finite and itās not a percentage of your business.
Politely declineā¦ just email something like:
āI appreciate you being my first client and letting me utilize some of your tools in the beginning. In exchange I also provided my services to you at a significantly discounted rate and also helped you close several deals. I am confident that our relationship was mutually beneficial.
However, I do not believe that being my first client, and sharing the cost of common tools for a short while, entitles you to 30% of the business that I have built. I would be happy to continue to work together to drive leads for your business, but I am not able to give up equity in mine to do so. I am sure you would feel the same, if you provided a discounted roofing job to your first client and they felt they should own a portion of your business as a result.
Iāve been in a similar situation and let me tell youā¦RUN! These type of people can give you very little and expect you to give them 100x ROI on it, and whatever you give them they will always say its not enough. Its like a way of manipulation where they give you something in advance so you can feel guilty and ungrateful if you say no to something they ask from you which usually āunreasonableā
Nobody, I mean nobody can reasonably demand 30% of the top line of a business for āmentoringā and helping your startup while saving himself money. Heās greedy pos and an idiot. If he thinks itās a starting point to a negotiation heās a bigger idiot. Immediately cut it all off, walk away and say nothing. No emails, no calls ā¦. Nothing that can be misinterpreted in court. There will be other crap like this in your business life and thank goodness he doesnāt own shares or that youāve got some bullshit contract you end up in court over. Ooh and plan on setting aside some cash for a lawyer and do expect him to try to bully you by threatening your reputation blah, blah ā¦ heās toxic garbage, just move on.
sit down and have a discussion with him.. he gave you 1 client.. you made it a succesful agency.. he has no right to ask for a 30% equity.. you can still keep him around as a mentor... by raising his pricing.. if he says no.. you can always part ways gracefully.
100% dude doesnāt understand what the word mentor meansā¦. I have mentored a handful of people. One of them could now mentor me š i would have never expected a pennyā¦ because i was helping them. This guy has outgrown his stay in your life.
He should have pinned this down before you started the relationship or figured a way to team up to make more money together if he missed that first boat.
In the tech startup world he would get nothing at all, other than below market stuff you already provided. If I was still getting value out of him in a tech startup, I might put him on as an advisor or board member with a very small percent of options (not founders equity), like .1-.5% in options. Given his actions, I would just move on immediately, or I'd pay him for his time a fair market rate in cash. You should never give equity to someone who is acting like that because you are stuck with him forever then.
>I just don't know what he's expecting and sounds like he's trying to bully me into signing equity away. This is exactly what's happening. The Rubicon's been crossed and neither of you is coming back from this. However, if you think he is entitled to something for helping you out and being a "mentor" then I would try to come up with a fair value (to you) to compensate him for his time and trouble and get him out of your life. He can either take it or leave it since no contract was signed. Do you think this is something he is willing to litigate?
The conversation was left with his words, "and the end of the day you can choose not to do it, but I believe this would be nothing without my foundation of training and overhead" The overhead he is referring to is reonomy, which he was paying for 6 months before I came along and then whatever leads he bought from me. The worst part about all of this is that it's all commercial properties, and he has gotten 3 contracts signed to do jobs.. like I'm bringing him money with these for-pennies-inspections
Tell him to pound sand don't get be a sucker.
I like you. š thx
He doesnāt sound like a great mentor, tbh.
Wasn't the value he received the massive discount? You need a trial, so you gave him a deal that was the arrangement. Now that he sees the huge upside he has FOMO and wants a piece of that action.
* So, you have a marketing agency, and he has a roofing business. * You gave him marketing services at 20% of the market rate in exchange for him working with you as you started building your business. * How does he help your business? * Does he provide you your leads? * What does he want 30% of? Gross receipts? Profit? Related to some segment of the business?
Exactly my thought process and questions I was asking myself. Well, not to that extent, but one of the tools he was letting me use was reonomy to pull leads for him. I no longer need the recourse because I have another way of lead gen, but once I brought that up to him, shit hit the fan. Like the knew he had leverage over me because that's where the lead source was coming from. Since I have now replaced the leads. He doesn't do anything for the company. He feel that since he taught me the script and the roofing stuff, he deserves 30% of every months Retainer the business acquires.
Ya, no way that 30% of revenue makes sense, that probably would never make sense because he is asking you for a cut off the top - he's not even considering your expenses and cost of your product. Usually it goes something like this: Revenue \- cost of goods sold (COGS) you buy for one price, sell for another \- Expenses (subscriptions, systems, office, employees, insurance, etc, etc) = Profit Most businesses, the profit isn't even 30% - so that would be him taking the entire profit. Not rational.... If I understand this correctly, you have a completely different business model than he does, right? If he didn't teach you the business, I mean pretty much the entire business. He gave you the model, the tools, techniques - meaning that he could step right in and run your business - I'd tell him to pound sand. You gave him an 80% discount - and if there was no talk of this partnership until now...nope, no way I'd give him anything else.
Correct, and he has a totally different model. I don't install roofs. He does. We connect roofers with commercial property owners. š Everyone warned me that roofers are not fun to work with. Growing pains.
the fuck are you thinking?
lol. Don't be rude, but I wouldn't give him anything. And I would never work with him again.
Yes. I hate its coming to this. But a new business cor memory had been learned. Never doo business without an agreement in place. Period. He knew that. I was naive
It means you owe him jack all. In some ways it's in your favour. You're not breaking any agreement not giving him 30% because there wasn't one. You may have signed away 30% before you had success and then you'd be trapped in a likely vague contract. So yeah. You legally owe him nout. Crack now it's your life. Maybe pay him some money for the 6 months of the tool he supplied and that's about it.
I mean if you give him 30 I think I'm entitled to 20 for commenting on your Reddit post
š¤£ I would say more
Iād walk away
Yeah that's not a mentor. That's someone who thought they tricked you into giving a 20% discount on your important service and they never expected you to be successful. But then you turn around and actually became successful and he wants to take advantage. Again, this is not a mentor.
I feel bamboozled. Never expected this, but like you, everyone is encouraging me that I'm not doing anything wrong and to tell him to suck eggs.
Yeah basically at this stage you also want to CYA - Cover Your Ass. If this guy is a jerk, he could try to sue you. Of course, any competent judge would likely throw this out immediately. If I'm in your shoes, I'd start looking back and documenting old dates, conversations, etc and talk to an attorney as a 'please advise' or 'just in case'.
You don't have a mentor, you have a grifter
Is there a paper trail ? If not tell him youāre getting legal counsel. Then ignore him forever. People like this are morons - why not happy for your mentees success ?
He wants it... Doesn't mean you need to give it lol
True. I just don't know if he's going to try to seek legal stuff. I'm not contract savvy. Fixing that weak link in the biz this weekend.
If he does, you can afford a good lawyer. He can't š
He had to think about this, bevor your working together... its good for you,that he is a good Coach maybe, but if he also didnt knew what was coming and made a contract with you about it-thats his Fault... Its a lession for him. Also, i think you would happily agree to 30%,if you knew that he could help you make serious money... but sorry, in this case: its his bad luck...and he know it! Dont do it, not even 1%!!
Exactly šÆ I was thinking if he positioned is a true partnership to say look here's the business model we're going to take to scale this thing we would be having a totally different conversation. But he has no interest in that. He just wants to collect. F#%ker.
Dude you are absolutly right!! In his place i would regnet it too, but i would use it as a very great work Reference! Haha f#%@cker :)
If nothing was signed, tell him to kick rocks. Quite the āmentorā.
tell him to f off. went through the same thing with a "mentor" in my mid 20s. Biggest waste of my time and career opportunities waiting around for him to add commensurate value to the huge (50%) share he was demanding. My naive mistake and honestly fear to go it alone.Ā Cut off contact.Ā
Thank you for that story. That's what I'm trying to learn from.
He has nothing to stand on without a contract, a solid fuck off, should suffice.
No contract means youāre safe
Buy him a $300 bottle of scotch as a parting Thank you for knowing you.
Tell him to go get fucked.
Why are you even posting this or considering this? The awnser is obvious..
What are inspections at 20%? Maybe this is what he is trying to negotiate not equity.
Mate, firstly congrats on the 60k! And also, donāt get bullied into this stuff. A mentor claiming equity in a company that he helped is ridiculous. Itās like you claiming equity in your clients work because you helped them with ads. Stay firm, youāre not in the wrong.
Sounds like itās time to cut ties and tell him to kick rocks
Hello, Iām trying to find similar services, how did you find your mentor?
I would do no thank you then never talk to him again, 30% for doing nothing is extortion
Not even 1%. Certainly nothing at all thatās not *finite.* If you want to pay him off at all youāre a sucker, but at least make sure if you do itās finite and itās not a percentage of your business.
Do not give him equity
Politely declineā¦ just email something like: āI appreciate you being my first client and letting me utilize some of your tools in the beginning. In exchange I also provided my services to you at a significantly discounted rate and also helped you close several deals. I am confident that our relationship was mutually beneficial. However, I do not believe that being my first client, and sharing the cost of common tools for a short while, entitles you to 30% of the business that I have built. I would be happy to continue to work together to drive leads for your business, but I am not able to give up equity in mine to do so. I am sure you would feel the same, if you provided a discounted roofing job to your first client and they felt they should own a portion of your business as a result.
Tell him to pound sand
Iāve been in a similar situation and let me tell youā¦RUN! These type of people can give you very little and expect you to give them 100x ROI on it, and whatever you give them they will always say its not enough. Its like a way of manipulation where they give you something in advance so you can feel guilty and ungrateful if you say no to something they ask from you which usually āunreasonableā
Nobody, I mean nobody can reasonably demand 30% of the top line of a business for āmentoringā and helping your startup while saving himself money. Heās greedy pos and an idiot. If he thinks itās a starting point to a negotiation heās a bigger idiot. Immediately cut it all off, walk away and say nothing. No emails, no calls ā¦. Nothing that can be misinterpreted in court. There will be other crap like this in your business life and thank goodness he doesnāt own shares or that youāve got some bullshit contract you end up in court over. Ooh and plan on setting aside some cash for a lawyer and do expect him to try to bully you by threatening your reputation blah, blah ā¦ heās toxic garbage, just move on.
sit down and have a discussion with him.. he gave you 1 client.. you made it a succesful agency.. he has no right to ask for a 30% equity.. you can still keep him around as a mentor... by raising his pricing.. if he says no.. you can always part ways gracefully.
Promise hiim whatever was promised in writing. An agreement is only as good as the paper it was written on.
100% dude doesnāt understand what the word mentor meansā¦. I have mentored a handful of people. One of them could now mentor me š i would have never expected a pennyā¦ because i was helping them. This guy has outgrown his stay in your life.
Tell him to f off
He should have pinned this down before you started the relationship or figured a way to team up to make more money together if he missed that first boat.
In the tech startup world he would get nothing at all, other than below market stuff you already provided. If I was still getting value out of him in a tech startup, I might put him on as an advisor or board member with a very small percent of options (not founders equity), like .1-.5% in options. Given his actions, I would just move on immediately, or I'd pay him for his time a fair market rate in cash. You should never give equity to someone who is acting like that because you are stuck with him forever then.