To Get Started

Welcome to the Co-Founder Equity Calculator! It is based on almost 3 years of one-on-one discussions with entrepreneurs through the co-founders meetup, the startup conference and advising various founders.

Fill out as many of the questions below as possible. If the question doesn't apply to your situation, leave the answer blank. For questions where selecting multiple founders is allowed, try to limit your selection to one or two founders, not everyone.

For customized, automated legal documents for startups, check out VentureDocs.

What this calculator doesn't do: it doesn't handle salaries, co-founders who invest significant cash, or co-founders who join once long after the first version of a product has shipped.

For projects that are heavily design-oriented, it's ok to replace the questions about development by design, but keep in mind that you need developers as well.

This calculator is experimental. If you don't like the results, drop me an e-mail with details and I'll try to make improvements. Thanks!

The Questions

Question
Who is the CEO?
Which founders are coding most of the site/app?
Who had the original idea and told the others?
If you could magically hire a few developers, would one of the founders become their manager, and if so, who?
Which founders are working part-time and will join full-time once you get funding
If this founder left, it would severely impact your chances of raising funding
If this founder left, your development schedule would be severely impacted
If this founder left, it would compromise your launch or initial traction
If this founder left, it would probably prevent us from generating revenue quickly
Who writes the blog and the marketing copy that goes on the site?
Who comes up with most of the features?
Who has a spreadsheet with budget estimates or simulations
So far, who pays for basic business expenses like printing business cards, web hosting?
Who pitches investors?
Who is well connected with your target industry, providing introductions to potential customers, journalists and influencers?

Suggested Equity

For more: VentureDocs