I am a professional software developer with substantial experience in my industry. A year ago I was approached by an acquaintance who runs a small local brokerage with another partner.
I started a website, supporting the two brokers to grow a side business in exchange for a three way revenue split deal. That site has been growing ever since and is rapidly overtaking their old offline brokerage in terms of revenue. We are now talking about incorporating and building a full blown company with a range of products.
I am committed to kickstarting everything and see to it that all products grow to maturity, hiring junior developers along the way and teaching them until I am no longer needed. Then I would like to retire from the business, (mostly) attend to other interests and - of course - still collect my share. We are probably talking about a 3-4 year timeframe here during which I would be on the team full time and phase out my involvement from the day-to-day business. They, however are in it for the long run - they are not after some kind of exit.
The two other partners see my wanting to withdraw from a "9-to-5" mindset at some point as me saying: „My time is more valuable than yours“. Which, considering I would quit an extremely well paying job for this opportunity and my talent being in more demand than theirs, it probably is. They, however, take offence at this viewpoint and think I am being selfish.
What is a good way to convince them otherwise in a diplomatic way? What’s a fair proposition?