What's the proper comp for this role?

A developer approached me 

He wants me to help him with the following:

-underwrite deals and spit out financial proformas (my background is in real estate finance)

-reach out to national retailers to lease upcoming retail properties he's developing (I used to be a retail leasing broker)

-put marketing packages together (I'm pretty familiar with Microsoft office and Adobe apps to put it together)

There will be no upfront compensation. He wants to pay me a piece of the development deal. He typically raises equity from other investors and has none of his money into his deals. What's a fair compensation structure for me?

10 Comments
 
Most Helpful

I'd tell him to kick rocks or try to work out a structure where you're actually an LLC contractor doing work for his development company, which you will invoice him for, not an employee working for free. 

How is he developing retail deals with 0% of his own money in the first place? 

Commercial Real Estate Developer
 

The guy even asked me to post the 100k soft deposit on a new 10M land acquisition. I declined and he found someone else to post the deposit. He says he never puts in his own money, but rather gets a equity stake for putting the deal together. It sounded fishy not having put his own money in, but he showed me some of his properties and development projects.

 

Sounds like they’re trying to take advantage of you. You do all the work and if the deal dies, they’ve lost nothing and you’ve lost your time.

I wouldn’t work with them out of principal. If they aren’t taking a reasonable approach to partnership today, imagine how they’ll be if the going gets tough. Aside, think about the other people that they’ve likely screwed and consider if you want to be associated with that kind of player.

 

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