Vircon Legal co-founder Erdem Mümtaz Hacıpaşaoğlu took part in the Entertech Pre-Incubation Program (November 2022), sharing essential start-up law knowledge with the program’s founders.
The four documents a pre-incubation team should already have
At pre-incubation stage a company usually has no revenue and no investor, which makes founders think there is nothing to sign. The opposite is true: this is the only moment when the documents are cheap, because nobody has anything to lose yet. A founders’ agreement with vesting settles who keeps what if someone leaves in month eight. A PIIA puts the code and the designs in the company rather than in a personal laptop.
The other two are outward-facing. Confidentiality terms protect the know-how and trade secrets that are the only real asset at this stage, and a written arrangement with each freelancer or student contributor assigns their output — the single most common gap found later in diligence. An option pool can wait, but understanding ESOP mechanics before promising equity verbally does not. Start with the Startup Law in Türkiye guide and the ESOP design checklist.
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