Work -for-hire. Consultants are not intended to be shareholders or corporate managers long-term. Startups can avoid panic and knee-jerk inclinations to cut consultants into a business with share structure offers by securing non-compete and confidentiality agreements. If a business cannot sweeten the pot for the consultant by paying them substantially, the desire to dangle an ownership share gets strong and usually turns out to be a poor gamble. The weight of a confidentiality and non-compete agreement is going to be extremely weak if the conpany was cheap and attempting to extort work without balanced compensation.
