How to think about a founder equity split
The instinct is to split evenly. It feels fair, it avoids an awkward conversation, and it is the single most common cause of a founding team falling apart eighteen months later — because by then the contributions are visibly uneven and the cap table says otherwise.
A more durable approach is to price the roles rather than the people. Ask what each role will actually own over the next two years, how much time it takes, how much capital or risk it carries, and how replaceable it is. A full-time operating role in a restaurant is worth more than a part-time advisory one, regardless of who fills it.
Then vest it. A grant that vests over four years with a one-year cliff means someone who leaves in month three leaves with nothing, and someone who stays four years owns all of it. Vesting is not distrust; it is the mechanism that makes a generous split safe to offer.
Equity is not the only option
Equity is the right instrument when someone is committing years and the venture might be worth a great deal one day. It is the wrong one for a three-month scope, for a specialist doing one defined piece of work, or for a business that will generate cash but never be sold.
For those, a revenue share is usually better — it pays out from the thing actually happening rather than from a sale that may never come, and it is far easier to adjust. On Junto a role can carry equity, a revenue share, a flat fee or a credit, and the two percentage pools are tracked separately, each totalling its own 100%.
Common questions
How should cofounders split equity?
There is no formula that survives contact with reality, but a few things reliably go wrong: splitting evenly to avoid the conversation, paying equity for ideas rather than for work, and vesting nothing. Weight the split by what each person will actually do over the next two years — time committed, capital at risk, and whether the role is replaceable — then vest it.
What is a basis point?
One hundredth of a percent. 10,000 basis points is 100%. Equity is expressed in basis points here because percentages with decimals are where rounding errors creep in — and a cap table that totals 99.97% is a real problem later.
Should a cofounder get equity on day one?
They get the grant on day one and earn it over time. That is what vesting is for: a four-year schedule with a one-year cliff is the common shape. Junto requires a vesting schedule on any role carrying equity before the agreement can be signed.
What if we cannot agree on the split?
That disagreement is information, and it is much cheaper now than in eighteen months. If you cannot agree on what each role is worth before any work has happened, you will not agree after. Consider a revenue share instead of equity, which is easier to adjust, or a smaller scope for the first project.