Starting A Business With Someone? Create A Founders Agreement That
Protects Your Friendship & Your Company.

Start Now For Free & Avoid Future Founder Disputes

We advise the whole founding team go through this process together.

62% of all startups fail due to founder disputes. But a lot of future conflicts can be avoided by having a founders agreement that follows best practices, and having all team members on the same page from day one.

We guide you through all the decisions you need to make as a team before you write a single line of code: from the equity split and vesting, all the way to how to handle the money you (or someone else) may invest in the business, it’s all in there.

Author

Who is behind FounderPact?

I’m Manuel F. Lara and I’m an entrepreneur from Barcelona, Spain. Years ago, I went through a very painful break up with my co-founder because we didn’t discuss certain things up front. And others that we did discuss, we didn’t put in writing. This resulted in an incredibly difficult time for both of us, the end of our friendship and almost the death of the business. While I’ve learned my lesson, inexperienced founders keep making this critical mistake that often results in the premature and unnecessary death of their business. FounderPact is my attempt at helping people avoid this mistake.

Ycombinator

“About 20% of the startups we've funded have had a founder leave. It happens so often that we've reversed our attitude to vesting.”

— Paul Graham, Founder of YCombinator
Facebook, Snapchat and Yik Yak are only three famous examples of companies that have been sued by former co-founders or partners.

Yes, it’s THAT common!
And yet, if you’re starting a business with someone, chances are you're thinking...

“I’m positive we’re on the same page. We’re both super excited!”
This is the heat of the moment, and will fade in a few months. Then what? This is the heat of the moment, and will fade in a few months. Then what? This is the heat of the moment, and will fade in a few months. Then what?
“We’re best friends / relatives / known each other for years. We trust each other, so we don’t need a formal agreement.”
This is the heat of the moment, and will fade in a few months. Then what? This is the heat of the moment, and will fade in a few months. Then what? This is the heat of the moment, and will fade in a few months. Then what?
“I don’t want my cofounders to think I don’t trust them by proposing we have a more formal agreement in place.”
This is the heat of the moment, and will fade in a few months. Then what? This is the heat of the moment, and will fade in a few months. Then what? This is the heat of the moment, and will fade in a few months. Then what?
“I don’t want to make things too serious / professional, we’re super excited about our new venture and we just to want to code all day. This is supposed to be fun and crafting an agreement sounds boooring.”
This is the heat of the moment, and will fade in a few months. Then what? This is the heat of the moment, and will fade in a few months. Then what? This is the heat of the moment, and will fade in a few months. Then what?
“My best friend / close relative put some money into the business. We’re close, so a verbal agreement is more than enough. We’ve talked about it.”
This is the heat of the moment, and will fade in a few months. Then what? This is the heat of the moment, and will fade in a few months. Then what? This is the heat of the moment, and will fade in a few months. Then what?
“We’re both unemployed / have full time jobs / go to school together, so we’ll dedicate the same amount of time to the business.”
This is the heat of the moment, and will fade in a few months. Then what? This is the heat of the moment, and will fade in a few months. Then what? This is the heat of the moment, and will fade in a few months. Then what?
“Look, either the business will work and we'll both be rich, and it won't and we won't get anything. There's no need for a formal agreement.”
This is the heat of the moment, and will fade in a few months. Then what? This is the heat of the moment, and will fade in a few months. Then what? This is the heat of the moment, and will fade in a few months. Then what?
“We use source code version control. Don’t worry, there’s not going to be any question about who did what.”
This is the heat of the moment, and will fade in a few months. Then what? This is the heat of the moment, and will fade in a few months. Then what? This is the heat of the moment, and will fade in a few months. Then what?
“Even though we’re both going to contribute very asymmetrically to the business, we’re going to split the equity evenly. That way we both feel like we’re equal partners in this.”
This is the heat of the moment, and will fade in a few months. Then what? This is the heat of the moment, and will fade in a few months. Then what? This is the heat of the moment, and will fade in a few months. Then what?
“We don’t feel comfortable having one of us being the CEO. That sounds like one of us is going to be the boss, but we started this together, as equals.”
This is the heat of the moment, and will fade in a few months. Then what? This is the heat of the moment, and will fade in a few months. Then what? This is the heat of the moment, and will fade in a few months. Then what?
“I’m an expert at the startup game. I was reading TechCrunch when you were still wearing diapers. I know what I’m doing.”
This is the heat of the moment, and will fade in a few months. Then what? This is the heat of the moment, and will fade in a few months. Then what? This is the heat of the moment, and will fade in a few months. Then what?
“I’ve had several billion dollar exits and sit on the board of several Fortune 100 companies.”
This is the heat of the moment, and will fade in a few months. Then what? This is the heat of the moment, and will fade in a few months. Then what? This is the heat of the moment, and will fade in a few months. Then what?

If you were nodding at some of those, hopefully I changed your mind and now you understand that having a proper founders agreement in place from the start is always a good idea.

Start Now For Free & Avoid Future Founder Disputes

We advise the whole founding team go through this process together.

Got any questions? E-mail us at info@founderpact.com