If everything you have read or watched tells you to “just start and figure out problems later”, not only should you be listening to your wife but you should ask her for suggestions on what to read and watch.

Very few landscaping companies ever get sold

There is a lot of good advice here but also a lot of guesswork.

You need to get a clearer idea of what he is offering. What you have now is a messy high-level concept that a lot of people have interpreted.

From my read, this could be a simple offer of $30k for 5% of the business and hence 5% of any dividends. This would seem to be a terrible deal for the investor and I doubt that is the offer.

It could also be equity with a royalty (which sounds like a bad deal for you), equity with a profit share (which could be ok in some cases) or a preferred share structure.

I think you need to:

1. understand the meaning of equity and debt and understand the differences between revenue, profit and dividends.
2. get him to write out the idea in at least one paragraph or 3-5 bullet points
3. post here again

I like remote work. I just don’t think it is effective

I am an employer in a strategy consulting business. I do not think it is possible to build team culture and operating effectiveness in a fully remote environment. In particular brining on and training junior staff is far more difficult.

Hybrid works. Remote doesn’t.

My feeling is that a lot of people who hate the social aspects of work, love WFH and don’t see what gets lost in the process. They broadly set their own KPIs, work to meet them, don’t notice when they diverge from corporate KPIs then whine about how cruel and incompetent egotistical bosses are.

In some fields WFH may work. For the most part, in my view, it does not. And the most rabid advocates of it are often the ones who least understand why.

I don’t think it is a quote. It is just something you wrote. I have never heard it and think it is ridiculous.

In my business if I cold called people, I would get zero response.

I have to actually do the work of figuring out how to get to them.

I find resorting to cold calling and messaging to be very unsophisticated.

I still don’t know why you made this post, even after you tried explaining

Set up a contract.

There is no way to make this deal and keep the two sides apart unless you take ownership.

Contracts are common in this sort of business.

You should also check to see if you are allowed to do this.