12/04/2021 How to Create a Founders Agreement | Startups.
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How to Create a Founders Agreement for
Your Startup
What is a founders agreement -- and do you need one? (Spoiler alert: You do.)
Here's everything you need to know.
August 16th, 2019 | By: The Startups Team
With all of the things that go into launching a startup, it can be tempting to forget to
draft your founders agreement. You’ll be good, right? You’re all buddies. You trust
each other. You’re in this together!
And while all that is certainly true, you still need to get a founders agreement. A
founders agreement, like all contracts, is there to help you not only navigate your day-
to-day operates but also to come to your aid when things don’t go as planned. Don’t
skip this step, founders.
“When you first start a company, it’s easy to forgo an operating co-founder agreement
or other technicalities in favor of dreams and aspirations,” Meghdad Abbaszadegan,
founder of Free Fall, writes. “It’s not until you achieve success that money and greed
come into play. Entrepreneurs stop thinking about the vision of their companies and
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begin to think about themselves. When my co-founder and I fell victim to this, Feel
Free changed from a success story to a nightmare.”
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What is a founders agreements?
A founders agreement is a legal contract that a startup’s founders enter into. It can
cover everything from who’s involved to how much they’ve contribute to what
happens if someone leaves. It’s a legally binding contract and should be created at
the beginning of the company’s lifecycle, in order to get everything out on the table
before a group of co-founders jumps in together.
What should be included in a founders agreement?
While there’s no formal structure for a founders agreement, here are some things you
should strongly consider including in yours.
Names of founders and company
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This one is pretty non-negotiable. Get the names of everyone involved down on
paper, first and foremost. Also, make sure the name of your startup is in there, even if
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it might change later. It’s hard to overestimate the importance of a startup name —
which is why naming a business can feel so harrowing. A great name can help push
your company to the next level, but a terrible one can sink you before you even
started. So how do you find a great business name?
If you’re getting hung up on this step because you’re not sure what to name your
startup, check out our guide to choosing a name for your startup.
Ownership structure
This is where you determine what percentage of the company each member — i.e.
you and your cofounders — own. This number can change as people join and leave
the company. If your company is an LLC, you should also figure out what percentage
of management interest each member owns. That means you need to determine if
each person is just an owner in an economic sense or if they also play an active role
in management.
The Project
The Project is just another way of saying “your startup.” In this section, you’ll want to a
sentence or two describing what you’re doing. It should include a broad overview of
what you’re doing, as well as some specifics that are particular to your startup. Think
of the broad part as your elevator pitch and the specifics as what you’d say to a fellow
nerd who asks for more details about what you’re creating.
Initial capital and additional contributions
Every founder of your startup contributed something to become a founder. That
contribution could be cash, property, services rendered, a promissory note, or some
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combination of the above or even a promise of one of the above.
If one of your co-founders contributes something other than cash, you all need to
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figure out the monetary value of that thing and record it here. You also need to figure
out whether members will continue to contribute capital throughout the life of the
company or just at that initial investment.
Expenses and budget
In this section, you’re not so much writing out your expenses and budget — you might
not even know them at this point — as you are spelling out how you’ll handle the
budget and expense moving forward. For example, is one person in charge of the
budget or can it be approved by a designated individual? What about reimbursement
for expenses that founders pay out of pocket? How should founders submit for
reimbursement? That should all be spelled out here.
Taxes
Tax stuff is tricky — and we suggest you hire a tax professional to help you draft out
this part of your founders agreement. What you write here is going to be so specific to
your company and your company structure, so please don’t try to wing it on your own
or copy it from a template. This is one of those times that it’s a good move to invest
some of your runway.
Roles and responsibilities
This is another on that you might think you have handled with a verbal agreement —
or even an unspoken understanding of what everyone is good at — but don’t fall into
that trap.
“I started a company with four founders, and we didn’t define roles,” remote working
expert Jason Lengstrof writes. “What ended up happening is one person didn’t do
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anything that wasn’t interesting to them, one person would start a bunch of tasks and
leave them half-finished for someone else to handle, and one person was only
capable of handling process-based work,
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everything else (and write the processes). It bred resentment and made it very difficult
to adjust roles going forward, because it had been established that I could do
everything and therefore I became the final point of responsibility, even if we’d
defined new roles later. Our only way out was to sell the company.”
Rather than letting your startup get to that point, make sure to spell out — in your
founders agreement — who is responsible for what. By writing out each founder’s role
and responsibilities, you’ll not only be making sure that the buck stops with whom it’s
supposed to stop, but also that you and your co-founders and rehashing each other’s
work. Because that kind of inefficiency can lead to a startup’s downfall.
Management and legal decision-making, operating, and approval
rights
Who’s going to be allowed to vote on company decisions? Who isn’t? What parts will
they be able to vote on? Some startups give voting rights based on a member’s
percentage interests, but others choose to give limited voting rights to certain groups.
You can also give veto rights but no voting rights; supermajority votes; or even
managerial rights but no voting rights.
Equity and vesting
Equity. Stocks. Shares. Vesting. Fair market value. The minute you dive into figuring
out startup equity compensation, you’re slammed from every side with a bunch of
words that you might have heard in the past and you might be able to fake
knowledge of at a dinner party.
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But let’s be real: You definitely don’t have an active, working knowledge of them. One
paragraph in to any explanatory blog post and your eyes are already crossing, your
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fingers itching for the Facebook tab on your browser because all you want is to clear
your brain with a mindless scroll through News Feed.
Lucky for you, we created an entire guide to startup equity. Check out Startup Equity
101 for everything you need to know for this section.
Salary and compensation
How do you know how to fairly compensate yourself and your co-founders? This is a
very tricky question and, like many issues related to money, it can be really disruptive.
Some founders choose to not take any salary at all at the beginning, while others can’t
make that move and still continue to, you know, live.
Every startup is different, and every founder has a different relationship with every
investor, so there is no real one-size-fits-all approach. There are good startup founder
compensation policies, but also bad policies, and some policies that outright kill a
startup.
If you’re working to figure out this step, check out our guide to founder compensation
and our guide to startup CEO salary.
Intellectual Property (IP) assignment
Intellectual Property (IP) is everything that goes into making your startup unique. So
the very first thing you have to do is determine what your intellectual property is. What
sets you apart from the competitors? What is your startup producing, in-house? Your
startup’s IP could include blog posts, designs, app ideas, ideas in general, or
something very specific to what you all do. Generally, anything created within work
hours is considered company IP. Some companies choose to make anything created
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with work property — like a work phone or laptop — company IP as well. It’s up to you
to decide if you want to go that more hard-lined approach.
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You also need to outline when and how you and your co-founders would be okay with
intellectual property being sold. Who makes that decision? Is it a majority vote? Up to
the CEO? A unanimous vote? And if that IP is sold, who gets the money? Be sure to
outline all of these factors in this section.
The last thing to consider isn’t so nice — but it is important. And that’s a non-compete
or confidentiality clause. These documents ensure that you and your co-founders
can’t go out and consult for your competitors — or even become a competitor. It’s
probably not something you want to think about in the heady beginnings of a startup,
but it’s worth getting a plan in place, just in case.
Removal or departure of founders
If a member of your LLC dies, becomes disabled, goes bankrupt, or is fired — what are
you going to do? This section gives remaining members the option to buy out that
member’s interests. If you do decided to include buyout rights, be sure to outline how
a buyout would take place, the buyout price, and the payout terms.
If you’re stuck on buyout price because your company is still young, consider either
setting a price now or writing a provision the price will be based on fair market value
at the time of the buyout. Then, let that number be determined by an impartial third
party appraiser.
Dissolution and termination clauses
No one likes to think about the end at the beginning, but it’s best for everyone
involved if you do. Outline what circumstances or events would lead to the dissolution
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of your company. You should also spell out winding up procedures and waterfall
distributions of your company’s assets if your company dissolves.
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Dispute resolution
What are you going to do if a dispute about something in this agreement comes up?
This section is where you’ll outline that procedure. Many startup founders choose to
require that any dispute with the founders agreement is settled with binding
arbitration, but it’s up to you and your co-founders to decide what you want to do.
How to make a founders agreement
Here are some steps you can take to make a founders agreement. They’re not
binding, but they are a good general guide to follow as you work through this
process.
1. Choose a template There are templates all over the internet, including at the
bottom of this article. Choose one that best fits your startup or create your own with
pieces from different templates. The goal is to create a founders agreement that best
fits your, your cofounders’, and your startup’s needs. And while the legal talk might be
intimidating, don’t worry about it yet. We’ll address that in Step 4.
2. Fill out the simple sections Go through and fill out all the sections that don’t take a
lot of thought. Stuff like your names, where you’re located, when the company started,
the name of the company, if you have that worked out. Basically it’s the stuff that you
don’t have to consult with each other on.
3. Take the time to hash out the hard stuff. And then it’s time for the hard
conversations! This is when you and your co-founders need to go through all of the
tricky stuff, from equity to compensation to termination, and figure out what you want
to do.
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These conversations can be difficult and it’s easy to veer into personal feelings and
offense. Remember: You trust each other. You’re working together. It’s business, not
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personal. But you all need to protect your own interests and the interests of the
company. It’s okay if these conversations take a few days or even a couple weeks, but
consider setting a date when it will be fully finished, just to make sure you don’t keep
going back and forth forever.
4. Get any legal advice you might need. As we mentioned above, it’s a good idea to
get a tax expert to help you outline the tax section. But it’s also a good idea to have
your founders agreement reviewed by a lawyer, because it is a legally binding
agreement. Having a professional, legal, and non-invested eye on the document can
help ensure that you’re all protected in the future. They’re also likely to catch legal
technicalities that you, as non-lawyers, might not have noticed.
5. Get a second opinion. But legal opinions aren’t the only opinions! It can also be a
good idea to ask a fellow entrepreneur or even an advisor to look over your founders
agreement. (You can black out any personal or financial info, if that makes you feel
more comfortable.)
Fellow entrepreneurs may be able to give advice based on their own experience and
also notice things that a lawyer might not. It’s never a bad idea to utilize your
community for something like this, assuming the community you’ve built is a solid and
knowledgeable one. So use your networks!
6. Review and sign! Finally, give each of your co-founders time to review their copy of
the founders agreement, consult their lawyers if necessary, and then sign and date it.
Once it’s been signed and dated by everyone, it’s a legally binding document. Be sure
to store an electronic copy with everyone’s signatures that your whole team can
access, for future reference.
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Templates-Samples-Examples
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Here are some founders agreement templates to help you get started. This isn’t legal
advice, but rather a starting place for you as you work on hammering out your own
founders agreement. Remember: It’s always a good idea to consult a lawyer for this!
PandaDoc Founders’ Agreement Template
UPenn Founders’ Agreement Overview
Free Founders Agreement Template
RocketLawyer Founders Agreement
22 Founders Agreement Templates from TemplateLab
Docracy Founders’ Agreement Template
CofoundersLab Co-Founder Agreement Template
About the Author
The Startups Team
Startups is the world's largest startup platform, helping over 1
million startup companies find customers, funding, mentors, and
world-class education.
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