How to manage equity among cofounders

[lezleebee]

Hi, I’ve been scoping/developing a startup idea alone for the past 1 year. I feel like I’m ready to launch an mvp to test the idea and if things go well, push it further. From this stage, I would need an engineering partner to build an mvp, and I believe equal/close-to-equal equity split among us is fair. I’m trying to come up with fair and smart equity split for myself and my future technical partner and would like your thoughts!

1. Do you recommend that the equity split be 50:50 or the original founder getting slightly more for the sake of decision making in the future? What if there is a case, where 2 of us disagree on something critical and if we have equal stake, I’m worried reaching alignment could take forever
2. I agree that placing vesting schedule on both myself and my future partner would keep both of us committed. Let’s say 4 year vesting schedule and if one of us gets fired or leave before 4 years, then the person won’t get full equity. But if there are 2 founders with equal stake, how can one fire the other?
3. What are the common scenarios that qualifies a cofounder to be fired before full vesting?
4. Do you recommend that I place performance-based milestones to hit, in addition to vesting? Even if my partner reached 4 years, if s/he hasn’t built an mvp, then s/he doesn’t get full or no equity etc
5. If there are equity split agreement drafts or resources that you recommend, plz let me know.

Thank you and sorry the posting got long!

 

[samjazz]

@lezleebee Number four is crucial, but then a third-party impartial party should be involved.

Let’s say my responsibility is marketing and there’s outline task with milestones underneath along engaging with the community. Let’s say I am unable to finish my marketing task because development team couldn’t complete mockup

But nowhere in the agreement does a state that you have to do mock ups, and it was an extra thing you took on.

also, you haven’t been engaging with the community ?

Impartial board to fire or add a third later down…biz idea

Biz mediator/ proxy seat for certain situations when it’s a two-party business.
4yr vest /1 cliff?
If person leaves or fired, company has first turn at shares .