Sweat equity

Joining a business early for below-market pay in exchange for a stake, or renovating a property yourself instead of paying contractors, converts time into ownership.

It is how people without capital get equity at all. The risk is real: you can spend two years of unpaid work on a stake that ends up worth nothing.

Do the arithmetic before you agree. Two years at $30,000 a year below market rate is $60,000 of your own money invested. If it buys 10% of a business that ends up worth $500,000, you turned $60,000 into $50,000 - a loss, after two years of risk. The same 10% of a business worth $2,000,000 is $200,000. Sweat equity works only when the outcome is large or the discount is small.

Get it written down before the work starts, with vesting over time and terms for what happens if you leave or are pushed out. A verbal stake in a business that has since become valuable is the most commonly broken promise in this entire field, and you will have nothing to point at.