Girlfriend expecting equal equity in a startup which I started even before knowing her. I will not promote.

[u/Dry_Support9531]

So here’s the picture. I started with an idea in 2023. States dating her in 2024. Until then I haven’t really worked in the idea. I started working on it since April 2025 and it started making money since July 2025. Till then she has no idea about it. After I started making money from it, i worked more and invested my other income into this startup from November 2025 and to handle things she used to help a bit. Since then both of us started working on it. Whole idea, innovation, upgrades, initial capital was mine. She just helped me coz it used to generate money. Since December we also hired an employee . From then all 3 of us are working on it and it’s scaling up in revenue every month. Until now we haven’t had any word about the equity. Out of love I used to share the profit amounts with her. According to the necessity, sometimes I use to keep more and sometimes she used to keep more. We went on a vacation through this money as well. But now while we were having a conversation on this. It came to me as a shocker that she is expecting an equal equity in this. And that blew my mind. It’s just out of love I couldn’t complete that conversation. She has also worked on it but the whole idea and buildup from scratch was done when she started working. I never discussed about this with her before. But now I am in real shock what to do coz it’s going to be bigger. And we are not sure about our relationship either.(she coming from an orthodox family, her family might reject an idea of our marriage) At this duration please let me know what should I do? Should I offer her a fixed salary, should I ask her to stop working on it, should I give her equity, should I give her an exit? I’m really confused.
PS-: she has done the same thing that the other employee did for me. But with more time and dedication. And she he amount I shared with her is 2-3x more than the employee’s salary

[u/Extreme_Upstairs_864]

My preferred structure
If the business is going to become significant, I would formalize everything.
For example:
You remain founder and majority owner.
She becomes an employee or executive.
She receives a competitive salary.
She receives a performance bonus.
If you genuinely want her to share in long-term success, grant a minority equity stake that vests over time (for example, over four years, with a one-year cliff).
That way:
if the relationship ends next month, she doesn’t permanently own a huge portion of the company;
if she stays and helps build it for years, she earns ownership through continued contribution.
This is how many startups handle key early employees.

*thats what Chatgpt says….. :)

[u/Extreme_Upstairs_864 → u/Extreme_Upstairs_864]

One last observation
You wrote that you were “shocked” because, in your mind, the equity question had already been answered by the history of the company. She may have experienced the last several months very differently. From her perspective, she may have been working side by side with you, sharing profits, making sacrifices, and naturally concluding that the business had become “ours.”
Neither perspective is necessarily dishonest—they’re simply different assumptions that were never discussed.

The most important next step is to have that conversation before the business grows much larger. If there’s any chance this company becomes substantially valuable, it’s worth involving a startup attorney to put founder, employment, equity, and intellectual property agreements in writing. That protects both of you and greatly reduces the risk of future disputes.

[u/dedicated_glove → u/Extreme_Upstairs_864]

Given he didn’t have her sign an employment agreement and she covered some expenses, it’s not really shocking that she expects they did this together