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Dear Founders: Here Are Three IP Mistakes to Watch-Out For

Scott Edward Walker

Over the past six months, my firm has been engaged by a number of startups with significant intellectual property (“IP”) problems. In a couple of cases, the founders played lawyer on their own; in the other cases, the founders either used (i) a Web service that did not address IP issues or (ii) an inexperienced law firm.

IP 52
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How to Divide Founder Equity: 4 Criteria to Discuss

View from Seed

Editor’s note: Understanding how to divide founder equity at a startup can be tricky, even to the point of reaching emotional riffs between founders. Below, Lee Hower offers advice for approaching these equity discussions objectively and properly. Sometimes co-founders put off the equity split question for some time.

Equity 315
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Punch & Pie: How Should Co-Founders Divide Equity?

Agile VC

As a result, one of the trickier things co-founders tackle is determining the equity split amongst the founding group of individuals. Across both the startups I’ve personally been involved in (PayPal and LinkedIn) and the startups in which I’ve been an investor, I’ve seen a broad range of co-founder equity splits.

Cofounder 255
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4 Deadly Legal Mistakes That Startups Make

Scott Edward Walker

Vesting Restrictions. The first deadly mistake relates to vesting restrictions. And if the departing founder has a huge chunk of equity, it is unlikely that the company will find many sophisticated angels or VC’s interested in investing. IP Ownership. Any IP created or acquired by a founder (e.g.,

Vesting 89
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Do It Right The First Time: Avoiding “Janitorial” Legal Work

Gust

Notice what is missing from this list of priorities: The company itself – that is, a business entity, most often a corporation , that will own the entire business (however defined), issue equity to founders, take investment capital , enter into contracts, make sales, pay employees and contractors, and so forth. Good stuff!

IP 114
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Punch & Pie: How Should Co-Founders Divide Equity?

Agile VC

As a result, one of the trickier things co-founders tackle is determining the equity split amongst the founding group of individuals. Across both the startups I’ve personally been involved in (PayPal and LinkedIn) and the startups in which I’ve been an investor, I’ve seen a broad range of co-founder equity splits.

Cofounder 173
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Opinion: It’s a startup world

NZ Entrepreneur

Remuneration will reflect the stage of the startup but it’s generally at a rate of about $500-1000 a meeting or directors might be paid in equity at about 0.5-0.75% This equity will vest over 2-3 years. In deep tech companies value creation milestones are more likely to be tagged to validating the technology and IP creation.