A lecture for organisations · 90 minutes · On site / Online
Building a Founding Team and Structuring Equity
Co founders split the equity in the first excited week and regret it two years later, once contributions have stopped matching the percentages. This lecture treats the split as a conversation to run, not a document to sign. It covers vesting, cliffs and what happens when someone walks away early, how roles and decision authority get defined before the first serious disagreement arrives, and how an employee option pool changes the picture later on. It also answers the question the law firm articles never answer, which decisions founders should settle themselves before they ever walk into a lawyer's office.
The content is matched in advance to your audience and goals on a short fitting call.
- Duration
- 90 minutes
- Format
- On site · Online
- Built for
- Startup founders, Early employees
What your audience takes away
- ▸Run the equity conversation with your co founders instead of postponing it.
- ▸Apply vesting and a cliff so an early departure does not freeze ownership.
- ▸Define decision authority before the first serious disagreement arrives.
- ▸Explain to an employee what an option grant is actually worth.
- ▸Walk into a lawyer's office knowing exactly what you need decided.
Who this lecture is for
Written for accelerator and incubator programme managers who currently outsource this slot to a law firm, university entrepreneurship clubs where co founder teams are forming in the room, and founder communities and meetup organisers who watch co founder conflict repeat itself. Startup people leads, and finance leads preparing a first employee option plan, book the version aimed at employees rather than founders. Municipal and regional business houses running founder cohorts get the case that comes up constantly, two or three partners starting a venture together.
Who delivers the lecture
Alexander Slutsker
Business consultant, entrepreneur and founder of Mobius Business Solutions
- ✓14 years of entrepreneurship and consulting, dozens of businesses and managers accompanied in Israel
- ✓MBA in Hi-Tech and Entrepreneurship
- ✓BBA in Marketing and Finance
What organisers say
Alexander's lecture is simply a must for every pre-army programme or youth centre. Our young people received an amazing, practical toolbox for adult life. The content is delivered in a fascinating way, at eye level.
How booking works
- 1
Get in touch
Send a WhatsApp message or use the form, with the date, the audience and the setting.
- 2
A short fitting call
On the call the content and examples are matched to your audience and goals.
- 3
The lecture is delivered
On site or online, 90 minutes, questions from the room included.
Worked with
- Google for Startups
- הבית לעסקים של עיריית שדרות
- Microsoft Reactor
- GameReady
- SderoTech
- IUCEL
- Resilience & Health Innovation Hub
- International Resilience Institute of Sderot
Want this lecture at your organisation?
Send a message with the date and the audience, and a short fitting call matches the content to your organisation.
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Frequently asked questions
Do you give an actual method for deciding the percentages, or only explain what the agreement should contain?
A method, and that is the whole point of the session. Every available explainer describes the contents of a founders agreement, which is the part a lawyer will handle anyway. What founders are genuinely stuck on is the conversation that produces the numbers, so the lecture works through the inputs, past contribution, future commitment, capital, risk carried, and how to weigh them together.
Do you cover vesting, cliff and reverse vesting, and what happens when a co founder leaves in the first year?
Yes, and they are treated as the centre of the topic rather than a technical appendix. These mechanisms decide who keeps what when someone leaves, which is precisely the scenario founders never plan for. The session also covers reverse vesting on shares already issued, which is the awkward case teams discover only when they need it.
Can this be run for a team that already split the equity and now needs to change it?
Yes, and a large share of real demand looks exactly like that. Renegotiating an existing split is harder than setting one, because somebody has to give something up in front of the others. The lecture covers how to open that conversation, what makes it survivable, and which mechanisms let a team correct course without anyone feeling ambushed.
Is this a substitute for a lawyer, or preparation for meeting one?
Preparation, and the distinction is stated openly. Most published material on this subject is written to make founders feel they cannot take a step without counsel, which leaves them paying for a template they still do not understand. The session tells founders which decisions are theirs to make and which genuinely need professional drafting, so the meeting is shorter and far more useful.
Do you cover employee options and how the pool dilutes founders when investors come in?
Yes, and putting both halves in one session is deliberate. Founder shares and employee options are usually taught by entirely different specialists, so nobody sees the whole cap table at once. The lecture connects them, including where the option pool comes from in a funding round and what it costs the founders in practice.
Part of the audience is experienced and part is new. Will it work?
Yes. The depth is set in advance on the fitting call, examples are matched to the sector, and the base assumes no prior knowledge. Audience questions give the experienced their room too.