How much equity should co-founders get?

As a rule, independent startup advisors get up to 5\% of shares (or no equity at all). Investors claim 20-30\% of startup shares, while founders should have over 60\% in total.

How do co-founders divide equity?

Summary

1. Rule 1) Try to split as equaly and fairly as possible.
2. Rule 2) Don’t take on more than 2 co-founders.
3. Rule 3) Your co-founders should complement your competencies, not copy them.
4. Rule 4) Use vesting.
5. Rule 5) Keep 10\% of the company for the most important employees.

How much equity should the first employee get?

Employee option pools can range from 5\% to 30\% of a startup’s equity, according to Carta data. Steinberg recommends establishing a pool of about 10\% for early key hires and 10\% for future employees. But relying on rules of thumb alone can be dangerous, as every company has different cash and talent requirements.

How do you calculate the founder’s equity split?

Each element’s weight is then multiplied by the ranked level of the founder and added up to indicate the founder’s equity split. For example, founder 1 has a ranking of 10 for Ideas, meaning that he contributed the most to this. We multiply 10 by the weight of 7 to get 70 points. We repeat this process as shown below:

Why should the startup founder be allocated more equity?

For that reason making sure the startup has the resources and capital to grow, and execute on the idea, is ultimately why the business founder should be allocated more equity. Remember, if a startup fails because the business didn’t grow and execute, 50\% of nothing is zero.

Why do founder teams split their equity by default?

Whether because of avoidance, too much optimism, or lack of knowledge, founder teams that split their equity by default were also found, per Wasserman’s research, to have triple levels of unhappiness within their teams. Which begs the question why? It all comes down to fairness.

Does the founder’s Pie Calculator really work?

The short answer is yes. Known as the Founder’s Pie Calculator, this is one method for quantifying the various elements that go into the decision-making process of dividing equity that was created by Frank Demmler.