Student foundersIllustrative case study
Three friends, one app, no paperwork
A campus ed-tech team found out who owned what before an investor asked.
Illustrative. This is a fictional composite written to show how the model works. The people, startup and details are invented. It is not a real client, and no result or outcome is claimed or guaranteed.
The situation
Aanya (design), Rohan (code) and Meera (customers) built a study-planning app over a year. A friend, Kabir, wrote the first version of the backend before moving to another city, and an intern drew the logo.
Nothing was written down. The code sat in Rohan’s personal repository, the domain in Meera’s name, and the three of them had never discussed shares. An investor’s first email asked for a founder agreement and confirmation that the company owned its code.
The question in the way: Who owns the idea, code and brand?
- Team
- Three student founders and two part-time contributors
- Sector
- Education technology
- Stage
- MVP, company not yet registered
- Route
- Joined through a university incubator cohort
What the diagnostic found.
The UERF baseline ranked the gaps by urgency. Severity is shown by name and symbol.
- CriticalNo written founder understanding: roles, shares and what happens if someone leaves.
- CriticalContributors’ work not assigned: the earlier backend and the logo were created by people who had signed nothing.
- HighName and logo never searched; money about to be spent on printing.
- HighCode, domain and cloud account held in personal accounts.
- DevelopmentalNot sure whether the institution’s IP policy applied. Turned into a reading task, not a penalty.
The plan, in order.
One priority map, worked through by the roles the stage called for.
First 7 days
- Write a one-page founder understanding and have all three confirm it.
- List every contributor and what each created.
- Search the name before ordering anything printed.
By day 30
- Collect short written assignments from Kabir and the intern.
- Move the code, domain and cloud account into a company-controlled setup.
- Read the institution’s IP policy and record the position.
By day 60
- Agree how shares are earned over time, then take the registration step with an authorised professional.
- Build an IP inventory and start a simple cap table.
What they produced
- Founder-agreement roadmap
- IP inventory
- Contributor assignments
- Name-search note
- Risk register
Connected modules
JurisYantra, TransactionVeritas. How they connect
Step 5 and 6: Prove, then raise and scale
What changed.
- The founders could describe, in writing, who owned what and why.
- Both contributors were friendly and signed quickly. The team noticed this would have been much harder after a funding round or a falling-out.
- The name search showed a clash. Changing it cost little because little had been spent.
- When the investor’s request arrived, the answer was a folder, not a scramble.
Lessons
- Ownership is easiest to settle when everyone is still friends and nothing is at stake.
- Contributors are where the gaps usually are, not the founders.
- Write it down first; formalise with a professional second.
Illustrative. This is a fictional composite written to show how the model works. The people, startup and details are invented. It is not a real client, and no result or outcome is claimed or guaranteed.
Other case studies.
- Early-stage startupThe calendar nobody ownedAn agri-tech startup turned scattered filings into one calendar and a folder of proof.
- Early-stage startupFrom hackathon prototype to security questionnaireA health-tech team answered a customer’s security questions before they became a rebuild.
- Early-stage startupTwelve warm leads, two invoicesA workflow-tool startup found where deals were stalling by writing the pipeline down.