Equity for Mentoring and guiding a startup

I am a first generation entrepreneur. I am going to start an ecommerce venture with two other co-founders. However, we have a group of people helping us with the development of our product. They are not involved in the day to day process of our coding for the website, but in case of a bottleneck they do guide us (They are an experienced bunch and have their own tech company). They also help us deciding the framework we need to use and other best practises in the industry. They are willing to stand beside us for our initial pitch to add to our credibility.

In such a case, please advice how to quantify their worth. Does this contribution deserve a stake in the company. If so how much. If we need to geo with revenue sharing, how much should that be.

1st step - read all the other postings regarding equity distribution.

Then, consider a grunt fund or or variable as-you-go approach.

However ... Defining / validating your business model is likely more important at this juncture - otherwise you will be giving equity away prior to really understanding what your intended customer market desires / is willing to pay for.

There are two main aspects (among others):

1) How much do you need them? In short: are they just "good to have them close", "their help is valuable and it facilitates a lot our development" or "their help is crutial - our startup is not viable without them".

2) They advise you now (and maybe perhaps for some more months) but if you give away the equity, it's gone forever (with the exception of re-buying it).

These two criteria can give you the "start point" for further analysis/searching (see the advice of jimg)...

There shouldn't be "personal opinion answers" but I can say that if their help and know-how is not 100% crucial for your success, I would give them cash (now or later) rather than equity as their help is quite limited (especially in the time).

1-2% but only if this person truely contributes to your business directly.
make sure you know exactly how and why you're 'hiring' him/her. set scheduled weekly "board" meetings. If its only for the first two months, then maybe you could just set an amount to be paid after initial investment for their consultation.