I knew a guy who worked for a startup with no contract for over 2 years once. All in all, he received a single $1,000 check from the "founder" over the 2 years time, basically to shut him up. Then the company went ouf of business after not making the one and only sale they had been working towards the the last 2 years.

It was a fun 1.5 years of dreaming and scheming for him I suppose. Must have been disappointing when the big dirty didn't pull through.

tl;dr don't work for anybody for a significant amount of time without a contract.