Founder's Pocket Guide

<p>&ldquo;How do we split up the equity ownership of our startup?&rdquo;</p><p>This guide provides a framework and process to help startup founders answer this common question.</p><p>Equity ownership affects the culture and sense of wellbeing of a startup. Founders typically sacrifice a great deal of other life opportunities to work on a startup effort. In exchange for that sacrifice, a founder wants to feel the ownership equation with any co-founders is fair.</p><p>In detail, this <em>Founder&rsquo;s Pocket Guide</em> walks entrepreneurs though the following elements:</p> <ul> <li>Take The Founder Test to make sure everybody deserves founder status</li> <li>Review the case for splitting your founder equity into equal parts</li> <li>Use the <strong>Equity Split Scorecard</strong> as a fair method to allocate more equity to highly skilled cofounders</li> <li>Solve common equity problems using founder vesting structures</li> <li>Answer common equity split questions like IP and founder-investors</li> </ul> <p>Note that this guide <strong>does not go into how to use equity to attract employees or using equity to pay service providers, advisors, development companies, or other contractors.</strong> This guide focuses solely on the best practices of deciding the equity ownership split between the founders of a startup venture.</p>