When I was attending my last year CS at uni I was approached by a startup that was funded by my uni.
It was the usual clusterfuck, an app idea that two business majors came up with. The idea was ok, but they had no coding experience. I was supposed to to set up everything and they told me that they might pay me with stocks.
(When they tell you they MIGHT pay you, you know its fucking bad)
There was so many red flags at this point so I told myself there is no way in hell I would do jackshit for them.
So I played along for a while, just so I could use them as a reference when I applied for a real job, and it actually worked.
Sometimes I go and look at the domain just to see where they ended up.
They didnt get past the index page.