I had an older (40s) student, a lawyer, so not totally stupid, who got to 70 hours before I was ready to let him go solo. Having had a solo, he then quit, knowing he would never make it as a pilot.
Your mate would need to be able to do the following, without prompting from you or helping out:
preflight inspection
start and runup
lift to the hover, move around to a takeoff position
take off and fly a safe circuit, steady descent on final to a nominated position, come to a hover, land it.
hopefully make some radio calls as required.
Be able to carry out a landing from practice engine failure in hover, and a reasonably safe auto to a power termination.