Document Key Departure Constraints and Dependencies
Catalog all legal, regulatory, cap table, and operational constraints that dictate how a departure can be legally and practically executed. The founder cross-references shareholders' agreements, articles of association, IP assignments, and key customer contracts.
Documenting constraints exposes legal liabilities and structural bottlenecks before a live exit occurs. It ensures the venture remains fully compliant and defensible during high-stress equity reorganisations.
Complete a Founder Departure Risk Matrix detailing cap table restrictions, vesting schedules, IP covenants, and critical customer key-person clauses. The artefact must highlight single points of failure and legal dependencies requiring immediate remediation.
Five questions an expert would ask when reviewing your output
Use these to challenge assumptions, pressure-test your logic, and check the quality of this action's output in the context of the parent task and wider venture development.
- 1
What legal counsel or articles of association clauses validate your unvested equity forfeiture assumptions?
- 2
Why do you assume key client contracts will survive without explicit key-person reassurances from the departing founder?
- 3
How do your existing investor rights agreements constrain your ability to reallocate forfeited founder equity?
- 4
What dependencies exist between the departing founder's personal guarantee on debt facilities and company liabilities?
- 5
Where does your current cap table architecture fail if a departing co-founder refuses to sign deed-of-adherence amendments?