I hate the formality of contracts, but is there any good procedure early on for avoiding this in the future? It seems every billion dollar company has a "secret" cofounder that shows up when the money does.
Yes get a lawyer involved at the beginning to draw up a partnership agreement with standard vesting terms.
Outside of that no.
All that being said its a slippery slope for every guy "who helped find an office" there's a guy who "prototyped our mobile app" or "wrote the first version of our backend". Its very hard to pick the point where someone becomes a founder.
It's not about being a founder. It's about creating value. The value creation around finding an office might be 2-5k depending on the area. The value creation around prototyping a mobile application is massively different.
Yes get a lawyer involved at the beginning to draw up a partnership agreement with standard vesting terms.
Outside of that no.
All that being said its a slippery slope for every guy "who helped find an office" there's a guy who "prototyped our mobile app" or "wrote the first version of our backend". Its very hard to pick the point where someone becomes a founder.