Splitting founder equity and setting up vesting

Split for the future, not the past

Who had the idea matters less than who will carry the next five years. Talk openly about roles, time commitment and money each founder is putting in. Equal splits are fine when founders are genuinely equal; when they are not, an honest uneven split now is far cheaper than a resentful one later.

Vesting protects every founder

The standard is four years with a one-year cliff: nothing vests for the first year, a quarter vests at the first anniversary, and the rest monthly over the next three years. If a co-founder leaves after six months, the company can buy back their unvested shares at the price they paid, so the founders who stay are not carrying someone who left with a third of the company.

Titan sets up the standard schedule unless you choose no vesting. Investors almost always ask for vesting before they invest, so skipping it usually only postpones it.

The option pool

An option pool is a block of shares reserved for future employees and advisers. Setting one up at formation, commonly 10%, makes the early cap table clean and lets you offer equity to an early hire without a new board process. On Titan, founder ownership and the pool must add up to 100%.

Write it down

• Who owns what, and why.
• What each founder is responsible for.
• What happens if someone leaves, gets ill or stops contributing.
• How decisions are made when founders disagree.