How should we structure founder equity for mixed time commitments and vesting?

[HannahQS]

I’m trying to figure out the best way to structure our early-stage equity for the three founders. We all have different time commitments—one is full-time, another is part-time, and I’m somewhere in between—and we’re not sure how to make the split feel fair. The whole idea of a vesting schedule with a cliff seems like it might address this, but I’m curious how others have handled similar imbalances at the very beginning.

[Edward_L]

We tried a classic 4 year vesting with a 1 year cliff for all three, and the splits looked like 40/30/30 on paper. In practice the full-time cofounder carried most of the heavy lifting and the part-time one worried his stake wouldn’t grow fast enough, so the fairness felt more like a mood than a math problem. After year one the numbers mattered less than who was actually shipping, and we kept the schedule but added a small catch-up option for the part-timer when he started spending more time. It helped a bit, but it didn’t fix the vibe.

[Ronald_S]

Another route we debated was to hold back a pool and let time and milestones decide later. We considered an initial split with a larger reserve pool for future hires, so we could rebalance without anyone feeling stuck. We never fully implemented it because it felt messy to track, yet the idea sticks around as a possible way to adapt if workloads shift. Would a reserve pool that could be rebalanced as workloads shift make sense to you?

[StephenA]

I tried tying parts of equity to concrete milestones like x customers or a major feature shipped, instead of time, but it got messy fast. People argued about what counted as success and the calendar kept turning. We dropped that path for now, but I still wonder if a hybrid approach could ever actually work in a small team.

[SofiaL]

Honestly I keep thinking maybe the real issue isn’t the split at all but clarity of roles and expectations. We spent weeks debating percentages while the day to day work drifted and the plan drifted with it. It might be worth cleaning up the roles first and revisiting equity later, or at least writing a rough expectation and revisiting in six months.