Developing a startup team
2 comments
So five people work on a project with the goal of earning money from it and incorporating in the future.
The others might be your best friends but my advise is to setup a contract first outlining exactly who owns what in that project. Even if you verbally agreed on 20% each there will come a situation where you argue that one person spent more on postage and the other spent more on legal fees or yet somebody else put twice the hours in as the next. Or you worked from somebody's living room (kind of an expense). At that point you will argue about percentages again so better to have it in writing as soon as possible. Source: been there, done that.
A contract also helps establishing that work created for the project belongs to the full team. E.g. nobody can go out and sell/reuse the domain or logo without the other people's permission.
To break the ice maybe just point to the movie 'the social network' (the one about the Facebook where the Winklevoss twins didn't set a contract).
The others might be your best friends but my advise is to setup a contract first outlining exactly who owns what in that project. Even if you verbally agreed on 20% each there will come a situation where you argue that one person spent more on postage and the other spent more on legal fees or yet somebody else put twice the hours in as the next. Or you worked from somebody's living room (kind of an expense). At that point you will argue about percentages again so better to have it in writing as soon as possible. Source: been there, done that.
A contract also helps establishing that work created for the project belongs to the full team. E.g. nobody can go out and sell/reuse the domain or logo without the other people's permission.
To break the ice maybe just point to the movie 'the social network' (the one about the Facebook where the Winklevoss twins didn't set a contract).
For some reason, I knew that movie would be referenced. But yeah that is sound advice. Thank you
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Currently, how your team is organized?
Do you have at least a developer? Do you have a designer?
Do you have at least a developer? Do you have a designer?
For all intents and purposes, I'm the CEO and lead developer. Everybody else is a developer. We are currently in the process of getting a designer. The main problem is getting one that is willing to just join the team for later equity, but this person would need to think long term.
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P.s This is my first post, I really love just perusing this site. Any thoughts, advice and nuggets of wisdom is greatly appreciated