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Ask YC: Founder agreements

2 points by mrtron ↗ HN
The legal docs (http://www.ycombinator.com/seriesaa.html) are a great resource provided by YC. I was wondering what initial founder agreement documents people use. Also is there any specific things that should be avoided including types of companies, specific agreement clauses, etc.

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diN0bot
i do tech, while my "parnter" does business. at the beginning he tried to convince me to incorporate right away and investing money (eg, 5k each) in a company bank account from which we would pay ourselves (eg, 10% of initial/mo). the problem is that as a developer i'd invest huge amounts of time in a product while he used the money to 'travel' for business meetings. if things flopped i'd come out with 0 compensation and opportunity loss, while he'd have used our money to network (and possibly use the product in consulting gigs to boot!).

he's actually a good, honest guy (just because a businessman is strategic doesn't mean he isn't honest).

anyway, the plan we went with instead is to stay separate and retain complete ownership of our work and costs until we each meet our goals. then we join forces. my goal is to build the demos, while his is to raise venture.

having a good business partner is crucial for success. someone who knows the market, users, customers and can sell the product. no reason why he shouldn't prove himself useful just like a developer. my main point is that developers tend to be naive and agree to proposals out of respect for teamwork and simplicity. don't give up ownership too easily.