First a little background...

I have run a small, web site business (sole proprietor) for about 13 years. For most of that time it has been more of a hobby than a business and I have a full time job elsewhere. About a year ago a friend I have known for about 9 years approached me about working on this and, in that time, we've had a blast doing so. We're good friends, have worked on the same projects for most of those 9 years on our "day jobs" and things look very rosy. Yet I know many friendships have been broken based on misunderstandings about business relationships. I don't want to go down that path.

In the past year, we've taken the site to the next level, have increased readership and revenue significantly (although still at pretty low levels in the big picture) and have e essentially achieved our first year goals of "building a platform" for future growth. Now comes the challenging part...

In the next 12 months we need to take the operational and business elements to the next stage. One big challenge for me is ownership in the company. I have put a lot of time and effort into this business over 13+ years and my friend has been involved for just 12 months. But he has brought a tremendous amount of passion to the cause and has been a key factor in transforming the site to what it is today. We are both tremendously excited about what we can do with this.

I believe I need to move from the sole proprietor status pretty soon, for various reasons. As part of that I absolutely want to reflect my friends drive and contributions in a fair and reasonable way. But the paranoia in me has this sense of putting pen to paper and within a year or less finding I have signed off a percent of the company and he's walked away. I have absolutely NO sense that this is what will happen but any agreement needs to accomodate the pessimistic as well as the optimistic. That's what a legal document is for, right? I want to ensure that anything offered / accepted is balanced on both sides.

Frankly, I don't know where to start! There's a legal element to this (which an attorney can help with, I guess) but there's also the "ethical" / fairness filter that I want to apply.

I welcome any thoughts.

Thanks.