She wasn't initially hired as an employee - it was more of a contract agreement to develop the beta, with the option to come on as a full partner if we were working well together.
I don't have any programming experience beyond BASIC as a 5th grader.
Market research, ethnographic study, trying to raise more funding,(too early for VCs here, and there are not many risk taking angels here), running the ongoing alpha, liaising with patient groups, and health organisations, writing copy and designing interfaces. Learning about tech startups is a phase transition from the perspective of a nurse.
I raised the funding, performed the market research, liased with many different health organisations, classifed the information in the database, wrote all the copy for the app, and created the interface mockups working with a designer.
The idea was that always that she would be a full co-founder. We agreed on a low equity split initially because of the asymmetric risk we were taking. The idea was always to increase her stake 6 months into the project, but not in the way it happened.
I met her through a friend, and 3 months ago would have been proud to call her my cofounder.
I am going to learn to hack regardless, I am just trying to figure out the best way forward in the short term, as the payoff for learning to hack will be a few months.
"this is a set of circumstances where the developer had most of the leverage, you failed to recognize it and got burned"
This is true to a degree. We agreed to the initial arrangement as a fair deal, but I didn't appreciate the way she swtiched terms on me, and then bailed when the going got tough. (ie funding ran out)
We have a prototype, but not one I would be able to release, as it needs a lot of user interface refining.
It is an online web app service for patients with chronic conditions that helps them manage their problems and has some social network features. (I am a nurse)