The math behind the split. Not a handshake.
Nine factors, weighted, visible. Every founder agreement, every advisor grant, every employee equity conversation — grounded in the same spreadsheet you can audit.
Spark plan · Deterministic · Zero AI
Most equity decisions are made on feel and defended on feel.
The founder split, the advisor grant, the first engineer's equity — each conversation is its own negotiation, with its own rationale, and nothing connects them. When someone asks "why does X have more than Y?" the answer is a story, not a framework.
Idea, time, capital, expertise, network, risk, role, opportunity cost, brand.
The engine is a spreadsheet. You can read the formulas. You can audit the weights.
Founders, advisors, employees — same math, different weights. Consistency compounds trust.
Three moves. One framework, reused.
Every party scores themselves, 0–100, on all nine.
Subjective at first. That's fine. The scores are the input; the framework forces honesty by making them visible.
What matters for this role, this company, this stage.
A biotech co-founder split weights expertise and risk. A first engineer weights time and role. A brand advisor weights network and brand. Same engine, different weights — and the weights are a conversation.
The split is defensible because every input is visible.
Print the engine output. Attach to the founder agreement, the advisor letter, the option grant. When someone asks "why this number," the answer is a page of math, not a story.
Equity conversations become math, not drama.
After one quarter:
A consistent framework across founders, advisors, and employees.
Nobody's equity is special because they argued harder. The weights tell the story.
A defensible founder agreement.
Every percentage on the cap table traces back to a factor and a weight. Your lawyer reviews, doesn't reconstruct.
Advisor and employee grants without renegotiation.
The framework does the arithmetic. The conversation is about the weights, not about the number.
Auditable.
Zero AI. Zero black box. You could re-derive the split on a napkin if you had to.