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The Co-Founder Mythology

Both Sides of the Table

I covered what I call “the co-founder mythology.&# Either you’re not technical and you think you need a technical co-founder or vice-versa. It is increasingly popular to have “founder dating&# or “startup weekend hackathons&# of some variety or the other. Hire your co-founder. Who gets 30%?

Cofounder 393
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4 Deadly Legal Mistakes That Startups Make

Scott Edward Walker

Question My co-founders and I are working on a cool new site, and we’ll be ready to launch in a few weeks. We have no money – so we’re going to do the legal ourselves. (And please don’t tell us to hire a lawyer.) Vesting Restrictions. The first deadly mistake relates to vesting restrictions.

Vesting 89
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Dividing Founder Equity in the Very Beginning

Andrew Payne

If an early very experienced developer has 1%, and a less senior dev has 0.5%, those become two reference points for the next dev hire. But, how should founders divide things up in the very beginning , where none of these internal reference points exist? And, how can founders talk about percentages before any funding?

Equity 71
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The New Deal – A Founding CEOs Value is Non Linear

Steve Blank

As a founder I fought with VC’s over vesting as they brought in a new CEO and walked me out the door. As a board member I negotiated with founding CEO’s over vesting when I thought it was their time to go. The fallacy is believing that a founders value is evenly distributed over four years. Preparing For Chaos.

Vesting 251
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A Startup Knows It Needs a Lawyer When:

ithacaVC

Setting up a legal entity that will have multiple owners from inception (like 2 or more founders) requires good lawyer input. Setting up a legal entity that will have multiple owners from inception (like 2 or more founders) requires good lawyer input. Lawyer time required (including vesting agreements for founders): 3 to 6 hours.

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How to pick a co-founder

venturehacks.com

SUPPORTED BY Products Archives @venturehacks Books AngelList About RSS How to pick a co-founder by Naval Ravikant on November 12th, 2009 Update : Also see our 40-minute interview on this topic. Picking a co-founder is your most important decision. One founder companies can work, against the odds (hello, Mark Zuckerberg).

Cofounder 101
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The Equity Equation

venturehacks.com

In practice, you raise money or hire an employee because you need to, not because you want to. Say the equity equation tells you to pay a prospective hire above market. You should still pay the hire a market rate and save the company some equity. Say the equity equation tells you to pay a prospective hire below market.

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