Single Founder Vesting?


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Does it make sense to sign a vesting restriction for myself, if I'm a single founder of my company?

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asked Jan 31 '10 at 11:03
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Newyuppie
441 points
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2 Answers


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You can't - someone has to own the shares. If you're the sole founder, and created the company, then you would be sole shareholder, and hence, you cannot vest. Vesting only works when there's a transfer of ownership, in most cases, from the original founder(s) to the new parties.

answered Jan 31 '10 at 13:57
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Elie
4,692 points
  • And even if he could, it would be pointless because at any time he could call a shareholder meeting, elect himself as the sole member of the board, then have the board craft an agreement to accelerate the vesting, or cancel the shares or whatever. He could leave a bunch of shares as unissued and grant them to himself periodically to simulate vesting, but again, it doesn't really accomplish anything. – Brian Deterling 14 years ago
  • Precisely - unless he issues all the outstanding shares to someone else, and has them give him the shares on a vesting schedule, which would work, but then he's not really the sole founder as someone else owns the company. – Elie 14 years ago

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Elie makes a good point about founders shares and vesting. As for founders shares, those are "given" or fully vested when issued even if you have more than one founder.

One thing that a C-corp can do is provide stock options to it's employees. Since you are an employee (albeit the only one), you can have a vesting schedule for stock options.

answered Feb 1 '10 at 02:37
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Jarie Bolander
11,421 points

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