I think the right thing to do here is to realise that they are outside your current means. Either pick them up for some contract work at the market rate or if they do really believe in the idea maybe they should be a cofounder.
Yes, we would like to get him couple days a week as a contractor to start-up. If we work together well, we would be more than happy to make the relationship even closer.
His rate is fairly high to us, but I know he is happy to discount the rate for us. I really appreciate it. A lot of people discount their rate working for us as well. I just feel a lot of appreciation of that, and hope I could pay them the rate they deserve (or other type of compensation) very very soon.
