There is a real art to how a founder manages his companies equity. If he gives it, or its derivative, share options, away too fast for too little value – whether funding or staff – he will be giving away his creation on the cheap and losing control fast. Vice versa hoarding it to himself will produce inadequate funding and not top-notch senior staff. If this is the spectrum then there is in addition a whole dimension of the terms and conditions over equity schemes. There are plenty of hidden elephant traps for the unwary even for “Day1 co-founders” (eg a simple 50:50 split yet one co-founder puts most of the work in…). Furthermore we have what was “pre-tech” an administrative nightmare of managing hordes of shareholders and regulations/laws thereto. Vestd who formed in 2014 and have thousands of companies on their platform offer a “guided SAAS” product where the platform is closely allied to tons of experience in re.

Founder and CEO Ifty Nasir formed the company in 2014 after a lifetime’s international career with BP and considerable experience on the internal corporate finance side of deals and equity including at one point hiring Lord Sumption on a challenging deal. He joins us today to discuss the whole “how hard can it be” (as always “harder” and in this case “quite nuanced”).

Topics discussed include:

• the first Yorkshireman on the show?

And much much more