.

I see 4 partners.

Maybe you offer her 25% and haggle go from there?

Thanks a bunch!!!

dottmon:

I have a clothing company which is still at start up stage.I bought all the necessary machinery and waiting to get an apartment to be used as the factory/office.I have a business plan i drafted.My wife who is also a partner in the business was discussing with one of her customers who saw the business plan also pick interest in the business and ready to invest up to $10,000 even though i have invested a little below that.I bought all the equipment from my savings over some period of time.Now my problem is giving her a percentage of the company.I don't know what percentage i can give her and for how much. I have invested up to $8000.I will only appreciate business sense advice and not condemnation(s)

Why don't you do a valuation of your business.
You can use your share capital against your investment in the company to value one share of your company. Get an accountant or finance person to do that for you.
That way you can estimate the value of shares she will be entitled to, depending on how much she wants to invest.

not a finance person but like Sir Ajanlekoko said, just do a Valuation of the business. You might want to consider sweat capital too .

you seem not to be comfortable with giving her much shares. have u explored all debt financing alternatives.

A valuation is the first and ideal thing to do. Since your company is still at the 'start up stage', debt financing will be the best option though a little bit expensive but you have the advantage of full control which will allow you develop your company without any form of interference. One question though what about your projected cash flows?

@ Poster. First kudos of starting your own business. That's the way to go, you eat what you kill. Since this is just in the start-up face, it will be had to just assign a "true" valuation to your company? However, with some information and Q&A you shld be able to get a ballmark valuation estimate. I can help build a vanilla model that you can use as a guide to see the value of your biz. Of course this is going to be a free service to you, however I am very busy and the trun around time could be one week. You can leave your email here and I can send you what info I need or if you want I can leave it on this message board, its up to you.

Also does this partner bring in additional value to the business or just cash. Does he or she have leads that will help market/sell your products? are u based in the states?

GL

deenee:

A valuation is the first and ideal thing to do. Since your company is still at the 'start up stage', debt financing will be the best option though a little bit expensive but you have the advantage of full control which will allow you develop your company without any form of interference.

I agree. I've faced a similar situation recently. A business I had been building for a year or so, with private capital, was valued at roughly N19 per share. However, I got a breakthrough opportunity, a line of business that could catapult the share value to over N60 per share in 2 years of operation. I had been shopping for both debt and project equity initially, and things were slow. Then all of a sudden I got not only debt financing, I started getting a lot of suitors who wanted to buy into the company. Very aggressive interest.

So I opted for debt financing.

.