The Workbench · Ownership

Big Slice / Small Slice (BSSS)

A milestone-based framework for allocating ownership dynamically and transparently in early ventures. It exists to prevent resentment, hidden dilution, and retroactive negotiation when a team is contributing unevenly under high uncertainty.

This is the ownership engine behind the Venture Studio and the Innovation Commons.

The general idea

When working with friends on projects, you always run into the same problem: everyone has hidden expectations about ownership and what it means to be successful. Many of us don’t even know we hold these expectations — they’re based on how we were raised and what we value. They are personal, hidden, and can easily destroy a friendship if the thing becomes successful.

On the flip side is the overthinking that happens from creating shares too early. It costs real money, momentum, and energy to create shares and a vesting schedule. Suddenly that playful idea feels like work, and it kills the joy of creation.

BSSS is a set of rules that act as insurance against the miscommunication that forms when everyone is excited to build something and nobody wants to stop and negotiate how much each person will own — until, too late, it isn’t worth nothing.

Vocabulary

Big Slices

A Big Slice represents a major milestone in the life of a project.

Each Big Slice:

  • Consumes a declared percentage of the total 100%
  • Is tied to a specific Release Level (RL1–RL10)
  • Has a point budget for contribution tracking
  • Opens when work begins
  • Closes when the Release Level is achieved

Critical rule: once a Big Slice is created, its percentage must never change. Point budgets may increase. Ownership percentages may not.

Small Slices

Contributors earn Small Slices inside a Big Slice. A Small Slice represents a contributor’s proportional share of that Big Slice, calculated as:

(points earned / total points in the Big Slice) × Big Slice percentage

When a Big Slice closes, the ownership earned inside it is locked.

The rules

Rule 1 — Treat ownership as a fixed whole

A project begins as 100% ownership. Think of a pie. Budget out the milestones the project is going to go through, set a percentage for each milestone, and lock that down with your group.

Rule 2 — Track effort from each contributor in each phase

The philosophy is that progress earns ownership, time alone does not.

You can track hours, dubloons, or happy points — it doesn’t really matter. A point system works well because then effort like sales or connections can be trued up against hours; sales, networking, and engineering work very differently and the contributions are not equivalent.

The easiest way to do this is to set up a regular meeting where everyone shows up and says how many points they contributed. The group agrees or debates it, and records the decision in a journal. This turns one giant awkward discussion into lots of little ones.

Rule 3 — At the end of each Big Slice, tally the Small Slices

Ownership is divided into:

  • Big Slices — milestone-level allocations
  • Small Slices — individual shares earned within a milestone

At the end of each milestone, tally how many points each contributor made and proportionally split the Big Slice they just worked through. Then move on to the next phase.

That ownership is not assigned to people upfront. Instead, it is earned over time as the project progresses through meaningful milestones.

The following table is a recommended allocation of ownership across Release Levels. This is not universal law — it is an opinionated default that reflects where risk and value tend to concentrate.

Release Level Description Slice %
RL1 Idea 4%
RL2 Vision 4%
RL3 Prototype 4%
RL4 Play Test 12%
RL5 Release 16%
RL6 Users 12%
RL7 Audience 12%
RL8 Monetized 12%
RL9 Scalable 12%
RL10 Stable 12%
Total   100%
Slices (BSSS) ownership allocation chart: a progress bar reading 100% allocated, 0% remaining, beside a pie chart splitting the whole 100% across ten Release Levels — RL1 Idea 4%, RL2 Vision 4%, RL3 Prototype 4%, RL4 Play Test 12%, RL5 Release 16%, RL6 Users 12%, RL7 Audience 12%, RL8 Monetized 12%, RL9 Scalable 12%, RL10 Stable 12%.
The recommended BSSS allocation, visualized: the full 100% budgeted across Release Levels RL1–RL10, with the heaviest slices concentrated in mid-stage execution. Download the BSSS worksheet (PDF) →

The philosophy behind this allocation:

  • Early stages matter, but are highly speculative
  • Mid-stage execution carries the highest product risk
  • Late stages reward durability, scale, and operational excellence

What this is (and is not)

This system is:

  • A contribution accounting model
  • A milestone-based ownership framework
  • A pre-equity alignment tool

This system is not:

  • Legal equity
  • A cap table
  • A shareholder agreement

It is a bridge between ambiguity and formality. Assuming success, you can transition to something more formal like a cap table and preferred shares. But until then, it can just be a spreadsheet.

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