The Founder’s Playbook

Three friends meet at a hackathon. They build something over a weekend that actually works — a tool that uses machine learning to analyze commercial lease agreements and flag unfavorable terms. By Monday morning, they’ve got a working prototype, a catchy name, and a shared Google Doc titled “EQUITY SPLIT.”

The Google Doc says: “We each get 33.3%. We’ll figure out the details later.”

Six months later, Founder A has quit her day job and is working on the product full-time. Founder B is contributing ten hours a week on evenings and weekends. Founder C hasn’t touched the code since the hackathon but still owns a third of the company.

When Founder A brings this up, Founder C says, “We agreed. It’s in the Google Doc.”

The Google Doc — that one-line note dashed off between energy drinks at a hackathon — is now a legally significant document that defines the ownership of a company generating $8,000 a month in revenue.

I wish I could tell you this is unusual. It’s not.