

Ask HN: What milestones do you use for vesting equity of minority co-founder? - trussi

I'm looking to bring a front-end developer on-board as a co-founder with equity compensation (5-10% total equity).  I want the equity to vest 3-4 times based on achieving 3-4 milestones (i.e. 1% for achieving M1, 1% for M2, 1% for M3 and 2% for M4).<p>What milestones have you successfully used to tie the vesting to?<p>How have you structured the vesting for part-time participate (that will probably grow to full-time as the business can support it)?
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answerly
Why not just use the standard four year vesting with a one year "cliff" for
the full 5-10%? If your co-founder isn't a good fit or isn't hitting
milestones you can part ways early and retain all or most of the stock.

More on founder vesting here: <http://cdixon.org/2009/04/21/founder-vesting/>
<http://venturehacks.com/articles/get-vested-for-time-served>
[http://venturebeat.com/2010/01/04/ask-the-attorney-
founder-v...](http://venturebeat.com/2010/01/04/ask-the-attorney-founder-
vesting/)

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trussi
Time-based vesting implies full-time participation. In my case (and probably a
lot of other cases), we are both part-time until the product gets traction.
Then we will take the risk of going all-in.

If I tie the vesting to milestones instead of time, I should be able to fairly
compensate the other person's part-time efforts without walking down the 'you
aren't working enough, your shares aren't fully vested' path if/when we
divorce.

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flignats
Why not base the first 1% or so on an hourly vesting schedule? So if he is
working part time he can rack the up the hours all year or however long it
takes. Make the milestones 'hours worked'

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trussi
'Rack up the hours all year' just sent chills down my spine! That's exactly
what I want to avoid. :)

