Incentive Alignment in Startups

Founder-to-Founder Alignment

• Equity splits should reflect contribution, risk, and expected future involvement — not default to 50/50 without discussion
• Reverse vesting (4-year with 1-year cliff) ensures founders earn their equity through continued contribution, not just initial agreement
• Define roles, decision-making authority, and exit scenarios in a founder agreement before the first line of code is written
• Misaligned founders are the #1 reason startups fail at the seed stage — have the hard conversations early when the stakes are low