In a past article I had written about my interest in trying to spend some time working for equity with a new venture. On a few occasions within the last six months I have been approached by a few people about working for equity. However, every time I've tried to follow-up with folks things just have not worked out.

The first two times things did not work out because of me. The very first time the person interested in getting me involved wanted the world from me. A total 100% commitment of my time without compensation of any kind and in the mean time I would live on bread and water. If things had worked out I would gain substantially from the endeavor and if not I could have chalked it all up as a learning experience. Here this person wanted someone with 10 years experience, no family and no other obligations besides a pursuit of a goal. This didn't work for me.

The second experience was doomed from the start. The person interested in getting me involved with a venture, IMHO, had no clue what they were doing. Here I thought the venture would have been a total waste of my time.

Lastly, this past experience didn't work out because the folks on the other side of the transaction didn't want me involved after all. That is fine with me because I'm old enough and experienced enough to know that not everyone is going to like you. Anyway, it all can down to me not having a portfolio of work I could share. This was hard for me to produce because I do mostly development work in the form of writing code. I'm not a web designer and because of that could not whip out a long list of clients/companies people can lookup on the web and see my work for themselves. I shared what I could but even I knew, after trying to put myself in their position, that I was not producing what they were looking for overall. I've been told in the past to try and create a portfolio of work that I could easily share with others and I've failed at doing a very good job of it. This is something I need to work on but to be honest it will be hard. Most of what I work on is proprietary in nature and sits behind a firewall on a corporate network of one kind or another.

To summarize, working for an equity share with people you have no relationship with to begin with is not easy. There needs to be some sort of trust established before such a relationship can start and I have had a hard time reaching that level of trust. Then there is also the nature of the venture itself and whether it would benefit each party involved.

I in no way am trying to be negative here. I simply have not found a match for what it is I'm looking for yet.