Before you start a business with anyone make sure you have negotiated and agreed on ownership structure

Negotiate the equity!

Who owns what?

How many percentage of the business or equity are you going to take up for yourself?

What will be the bases for negotiating and deciding who gets what in the business.

Apart from money, what else are we going to contribute to the business?

What if we need additional funds in the future, how do we raise that?

Are we open to taking on new partners?

Should the shares be vested? If yes, what should be the duration of the vesting schedule

What happens if one of us decides to leave the business?

How should we treat the shares owned by the person who is leaving?

These and several other questions are what you and your would be partners or Co-founders need to sort out.

When we talk about covering the legal bases before starting out, this is what we mean.

This is part of the “Hard-Talk session that I always talk about.

These are part of the things that a startup legal expert will help you sort out in the early days.

These are conversations that you have to have in the early days of starting out.

Nothing like, we are just starting, so startup legal is not that important yet.

It is very important o, and no, it is not just because I am a startup lawyer.

In my practice with many startup founders over the years, i have seen very serious cases of ownership tussle and trust me, it is not healthy at all.

So if you go ahead and float a company with anyone as partners or Co-founders without going through this legal exercise, just know that you are sorting out yourself and your business for disaster.

What I have just shared with you is premium advice

Now don’t go saying I don’t do anything for you🙄 I do too much for you as it is, you only have to listen and do the right thing.