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10 Comments

Should a co-founder necessarily own a percentage of equity in a company?

Should a co-founder necessarily own a percentage of equity in a company? Can a co-founder not have any share at all?

#looking-for-cofounder #co-founder

on April 25, 2019
  1. 13

    A co-founder without shares = an employee. Don't complicate simple things

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    If they don't have any equity, then I'd say they're not a cofounder. They're either an employee, a sucker or a volunteer.

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      This comment was deleted 7 years ago

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    It's not co founder.

  4. 1

    You can agree anything you like tbh, but I think a co-founder without a share would be a very unhappy one and would likely not hang around. Without a share there isn't much stopping them from quitting and going elsewhere.

    Plus you would (probably) have to pay them a fair salary. Usually founders put in the hard work with no financial reward up front , as the reward is the potential future value of the shares.

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      Yeah definitely would need a fair share of salary, at the very least. Just want to know if that even possible.

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        Why would you not give them a share though? It feels wrong not to, are there special circumstances?

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          Actually he is an early employee at first with salary. I'm thinking to give him a better title like co-founder.

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            If he's doing a good job why not giving him a better title with shares? ;)

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            Maybe there’s a different title that would work better than co-founder. If they are an engineer, an example would be “Founding Engineer”