# Agree on co-founder roles, equity, and decisions in writing

A structured discussion guide and term summary for co-founders to take to a lawyer before signing anything.

- Topic: Business Strategy & Startups
- Framework: Few-Shot
- Level: Standard
- Tags: Legal, Write, Fill-in Template
- Source: https://www.thinkwithprompt.com/prompts/agree-on-co-founder-roles-equity-and-decisions-in-writing

## Prompt

```text
Help my co-founder(s) and me agree on how we'll work together, before a lawyer drafts our agreement.

**Co-founders and what each brings:** [NAMES or roles, skills, time commitment, cash, IP, relationships]
**Business and stage:** [DETAILS]
**Our current thinking on equity:** [SPLIT, or "not decided"]
**Structure and location:** [e.g. "Delaware C corp", "LLC in Ohio"]
**Worries we already have:** [e.g. "one of us is part-time for 6 months"]
**Previous step (optional):** [PASTE my business structure comparison, so the terms fit the entity we're forming]

Give me:
1. A discussion guide of questions for us to answer separately, then compare, covering: roles and titles, who decides what, time commitment, salary and when it starts, cash and IP contributions, equity split, vesting and cliff, what happens if someone leaves or stops performing, deadlock resolution, outside work, and what we'd do with an acquisition offer.
2. Factors to weigh when splitting equity fairly (past and future contribution, risk taken, role replaceability), with a simple scoring sheet - not a formula that decides for us.
3. Common failure modes for co-founder teams and which of our answers might signal them.
4. A one-page summary template of agreed terms to hand to our lawyer, with a section for open questions.
5. A short script for raising the hard topics without it feeling like an accusation.

Be neutral between founders. This is general information; each founder may want independent legal advice, and a qualified lawyer should draft the final agreement.
```

## What to fill in

- DETAILS
- SPLIT, or "not decided"
- e.g. "Delaware C corp", "LLC in Ohio"
- e.g. "one of us is part-time for 6 months"

Free to copy and use. From ThinkWithPrompt (https://www.thinkwithprompt.com/), a library of 2,663 curated AI prompts.