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They're in serious trouble without the IP assignment. If they want the IP, they should pay you for it. If they go ahead without the IP, and rewrite, then they

by pbiggar 13y ago

They're in serious trouble without the IP assignment. If they want the IP, they should pay you for it. If they go ahead without the IP, and rewrite, then they shouldn't pay you for it. You've tried to play nice, its lawyer time now. Get the lawyer to post a letter, you can probably pretty quickly agree to a small equity stake, such as 3-5%. That's a small enough amount that they'll just agree to it, a large enough number that it'll pay you off if the company goes somewhere. It seems roughly fair for the amount of work you put in.

UK-AL 13y ago
There's whole host problems that owning shares of a company, with founders that are actively hostile against you. Defiantly need to make the terms watertight.
- gnicholas 13y ago
  Agree that if you're a minority shareholder in a company and have a bad relationship, you can expect to get abused. You need to make sure that the share purchase agreement is sufficiently thorough to foreclose the possibility of disproportionate dilution or other tricks. Unfortunately, the cost of hiring a lawyer to do this is probably several hundred dollars (at least), which may well not be worth it or feasible for you right now. If they're in an accelerator, they may have the cash to pay you. Sure, you'll kick yourself if they end up billionaires someday, but you can be certain that they'd have found a way to screw you if you'd taken equity instead.
- Dystopian 13y ago
  +1 this. The time you're going to spend with a lawyer making sure that they're not screwing you (again) on dilution isn't going to be worth the value of the equity. At this stage it'd probably be more worthwhile for you to lawyer up and use the IP leverage to get them to pay your consulting rate (itemize your statement for time spent, even if it's an estimate). A lawyer will probably advise you to send a last invoice and then a week later a C&D. It can be quite persuasive along with letting them know that next steps are alerting their accelerator to the IP that you own, and then the possibility of a lawsuit. If you have enough documentation and the case looks strong enough a lawyer may even agree to work with you on contingency. [Technically the accelerator would be well within their rights to sue as well since it's pretty obvious they didn't disclose there was an ongoing IP issue with one of their cofounders.]
fleitz 13y ago
Agree to 51%, call a shareholder meeting and elect a new board of directors, then have the board fire them all. Fuck them over by drawing it out in court until the market opportunity dies. While it's going through court, open source it, and make sure every potential investor knows about the court proceedings.

by pbiggar 13y ago

UK-AL 13y ago

There's whole host problems that owning shares of a company, with founders that are actively hostile against you. Defiantly need to make the terms watertight.

gnicholas 13y ago
Agree that if you're a minority shareholder in a company and have a bad relationship, you can expect to get abused. You need to make sure that the share purchase agreement is sufficiently thorough to foreclose the possibility of disproportionate dilution or other tricks. Unfortunately, the cost of hiring a lawyer to do this is probably several hundred dollars (at least), which may well not be worth it or feasible for you right now. If they're in an accelerator, they may have the cash to pay you. Sure, you'll kick yourself if they end up billionaires someday, but you can be certain that they'd have found a way to screw you if you'd taken equity instead.
Dystopian 13y ago
+1 this. The time you're going to spend with a lawyer making sure that they're not screwing you (again) on dilution isn't going to be worth the value of the equity. At this stage it'd probably be more worthwhile for you to lawyer up and use the IP leverage to get them to pay your consulting rate (itemize your statement for time spent, even if it's an estimate). A lawyer will probably advise you to send a last invoice and then a week later a C&D. It can be quite persuasive along with letting them know that next steps are alerting their accelerator to the IP that you own, and then the possibility of a lawsuit. If you have enough documentation and the case looks strong enough a lawyer may even agree to work with you on contingency. [Technically the accelerator would be well within their rights to sue as well since it's pretty obvious they didn't disclose there was an ongoing IP issue with one of their cofounders.]

fleitz 13y ago

Agree to 51%, call a shareholder meeting and elect a new board of directors, then have the board fire them all. Fuck them over by drawing it out in court until the market opportunity dies. While it's going through court, open source it, and make sure every potential investor knows about the court proceedings.