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#CofounderPrenups and why they matter: Ben's story

Picture of Jemma King Jemma King : Updated on October 2, 2024

Agile Partnerships Case study

#CofounderPrenups and why they matter: Ben's story

Last updated: 6 August 2024.

Based in Brighton, Second Voice Pro builds startup sales teams for early-stage businesses. In addition to providing stellar outbound sales resources, Second Voice Pro also prides itself on giving people from diverse backgrounds an opportunity to get into the heady world of business.

Bootstrapping a startup to success can be an uphill struggle, but Second-Voice Pro’s co-founder Ben Bennett recognised the power of the prenup:

"We really needed to incentivise individuals to take control of their part of the process” he said, “in order to build a solid foundation from which we could grow”.

Getting everybody aligned and primed for success

Ben knew that he wanted to reward other key hires with growth shares via his prenup, and that he wanted a simple way to manage his equity.

He signed up to a Vestd trial and “it’s been the backbone of our negotiations and cap table management ever since”.

"It’s literally a few clicks of a button."

Ben set up his shares with milestones and time-based vesting periods so that everybody earns their shares fairly.

He quickly learned how to navigate the Vestd platform and recently used it to issue shares to a new senior hire stating that “it’s a lot easier than filling out forms and having expensive legal fees!”

“It’s just saved me a hell of a lot of time, headaches, stress and money. It's been really valuable to get Vestd set up from the outset.”

“If you're incentivised and everyone's going in that same direction, it makes a huge difference to behaviours, motivations, and ultimately the outcomes. From a selfish perspective, the business is succeeding because everybody gets to win.”

“And to be able to onboard new directors with Companies House, and all of the documents go to the right people in the right order and then off to be filed…it's almost like, click this button once and forget about it.”

“That was phenomenal. The whole process is just bulletproof.”