ost founding teams start with a handshake and a shared conviction that they will sort the details later. The details, in this case, are who owns what, who decides what, and what happens if one of you wants out. Later, it turns out, is a terrible time to sort them, because by then there is a company worth arguing about. The founders' agreement is really just the written record of a conversation you should have at the beginning, while it is still cheap and while you all still like each other.
- 01
Ownership
Who owns what, and why the split is what it is.
- 02
Control
Who has the final call on what, and how a deadlock gets broken.
- 03
Commitment
What each founder is actually committing to, written down.
- 04
Exit
Vesting, good and bad leavers, and what happens to the shares.
The equity split, and why equal isn’t automatic
Founders reach for an even split because it feels fair and avoids an awkward negotiation on day one. Sometimes it is right. Often it is a decision made to dodge a conversation, and it bakes in an answer nobody thought about. The useful version asks who is bringing what, in time, money, idea and risk, and whether that maps to equal shares. You do not have to land on unequal. You do have to have looked.
It is worth saying that the split can also reflect the future, not just the past. A co-founder joining a few months in, or one going part-time while another goes full-time, changes the picture. The conversation is easier now than the day someone feels short-changed.
Roles, decisions and deadlock
Two founders who agree on everything today will not agree on everything in a year. The agreement should say who has the final call on what, and what happens when you disagree on something big. A deadlock with no mechanism to break it is how good companies freeze at the worst possible moment. It does not need to be elaborate. It needs to exist, so that a disagreement is a process rather than a crisis.
Time, commitment and what full-time means
Founders rarely write down what they are each committing to, and then resent each other when the commitments turn out to differ. One person is full-time and unpaid, another is keeping a job on the side, a third is promising evenings and weekends. None of that is wrong, but it should be agreed and written down, because the gap between what people assumed and what happened is one of the most common sources of founder fallout.
Vesting and what happens if someone leaves
Vesting means each founder earns their shares over time rather than owning them all on day one. Most founders already have a rough sense that this is sensible, and the point is not to convince you it matters but to get the details right, because that is where it goes wrong. How long is the vesting period? Is there a cliff at the start before anything vests? What counts as a good leaver versus a bad leaver, and what happens to unvested and vested shares in each case? These are the questions that decide whether a departure is manageable or a mess, and they are far easier to answer in the abstract than with a specific person walking out of the door.
None of this requires a fifty-page document or a six-week legal process.
What the document is, and isn’t
A good founders' agreement is short. It is not there to anticipate every possible future, which is impossible, but to settle the handful of things that cause real damage when left unsaid: ownership, control, commitment, and exit. Get those four down clearly and you have done the job. The rest can evolve as the company does.
The short version
It requires an honest hour, and then someone to write down what you agreed in terms that will hold. That second part is the bit we help with, and it is far easier when the conversation has already happened.