Disagreements between founders can be a huge drag on any new company. You’ve probably heard some cautionary tales, whether it’s Apple’s origin story or drama from local business owners.

Before you launch your own company, be sure to ask your co-founders these pointed questions about how each of you will handle responsibility, authority, and money. These are hard conversations to have, but they’ll reduce your risk of ending up in a money-wasting time-suck of a dispute.

1. Who’s doing what, exactly?

First, define each founder’s roles and responsibilities. This goes beyond assigning someone to sales and someone to product development, although that can be an important first step. Think about what will happen after the first days of your business. Once you’re up and running, who will be in charge of office space, training employees, legal compliance, and other day-to-day tasks? These items may not be top of mind now, but they’re critical for your company’s long-term survival.

In the early days, you and your co-founders will probably wear many hats. However, it’s important to be realistic about what each person can accomplish. For tasks that the founders can’t or won’t do, how will you outsource them? And what’s the backup plan for when life happens and a founder is behind on their deliverables, down to the last few dollars in their bank account, and hasn’t closed a sale for months?

2. How will you make decisions when you don’t agree?

Every business needs to address this question, but it comes up most often with two-owner companies who want to share control of the company equally. These types of co-founders often say, “We’ll have to agree on everything anyway,” or “If we can’t agree, we’ll have bigger problems to deal with.” Exactly! The time to put a decision-making process in place is before those bigger problems emerge.

While 50-50 control can work in practice, it’s worth going over a few likely scenarios. Are you OK with nothing getting done if you can’t agree? How will you keep your business going if you clash on something major, like an expansion strategy? Will there be any situations where one founder should be able to override the others? These questions can be challenging, but discussing them thoroughly can actually strengthen your co-founder relationship.

3. How will you allocate profits and losses?

Economic conflicts are some of the most toxic founder disputes. Typically, these come up when one person feels like they aren’t being compensated fairly for their work. Like everything else in a startup, what everyone sees as a fair division of the profits can change drastically as the company grows (or doesn’t).

There are several ways to reward everyone’s contributions to the company. For example:

• Is one of you taking the lead while the other stays tethered to a day job for the time being? It may make sense for the more active founder to be paid first once profits start coming in.
• Does the company’s viability depend on the founders meeting certain milestones? Their financial incentives can be conditioned on completing these tasks.
• Do the founders know now that their contributions will vary wildly over the next few years? They might negotiate a dynamic ownership format where their equity grows in a way that mirrors their efforts.

Putting it all together

Once you’ve answered these questions, be sure to document your understanding in an LLC membership agreement or shareholder agreement. A separate founder agreement may be useful here as well.

Legal counsel can help work through any lingering concerns. Your lawyer represents the company and not any one founder, and can speak objectively, based on the experience of seeing other companies fail or succeed.

Remember, documentation is only half the battle. Consistent communication with your co-founders is key. By recognizing that no one is immune to a founder breakup, you’ll be more likely to confront issues head-on, and resolve them before they escalate.