Loved the book! Just started a business with a partner and now we know what to do! My partner and I agreed to a 50/50 split when we started. We read your book and now know a grunt fund is the way to go for us. And, we are planning to bring other grunts on board in the next couple months.

Love it. Makes total sense. I’ve seen so many contentious disputes arise from equity splits with both new and semi-mature companies that so often stem from disagreements about contribution and expectations - dynamic splits are an elegant solution. Everyone should do this!

Thank you so much for tonight’s presentation on Slicing Pie. Your knowledge, understanding, and passion for the topic really came through. Equity has always been such a point of anxiety for me and your presentation tonight has completely alleviated all of that. I can’t believe this is the first I’ve heard of this methodology. I am so relieved and grateful that I went to your presentation tonight before making a handshake fixed split equity deal with my future partners…and think they will be grateful as well.

We use a Grunt Fund for our company Magic Wizard LLC. The Grunt Fund allowed us to save a ton of legal costs and on board people quickly. We currently have 12 engineers and marketers working on the project in their spare time. We have everything from VPs in marketing for a $55MM company and senior engineers to first year undergrads who just want to help. The Grunt Fund has made all that possible by easily on boarding and faith sharing equity. Magic Wizard is also our own experiment in how robust the Grunt Fund is, our motto is "Break the Grunt Fund!" So far, by appropriately following the rules, we haven’t been able to break it!

Loved the book. It clarified so much of the tension I've felt in the past and gave me new language/vision for the future. Thank YOU!

Slicing Pie makes the business part of doing business fun!

I am die hard fan of the slicing pie. I have started three start-ups with static equity and it was a disaster as I felt I was not being well compensated. But after implementing it, the story changed.

Slicing Pie changed. my. life.

Thanks for your books and articles on Slicing Pie. Our bootstrapped startup is just taking off now after a few years. I can't imagine how complicated things would have gotten if we'd have gone with a traditional Fix & Fight model. We've had so many people come and go, and everyone did their part and deserves to profit accordingly. And now they will!

The more I think about Slicing Pie, even beyond start up contracts, the more excited I get! Just to think how many problems would be solved with an approach like this...so much less likely to breed resentment, so much more reasonable. This should be the standard! I might start buying your book as holiday gifts for all the lawyers I know 🙂

​Slicing Pie, simply put saved my company. I entered into the dreaded "fixed split" in the early stages of my company, in an effort to just get the equity discussions over with thinking that equally splitting my company would be for the best, and motivate my other team members and partners to work just as many hours and as hard as me, without resentment. I couldn't have been more wrong. Within 6 months, I was facing serous issues internally in my company, and had to make some tough decisions. Would I continue the venture I once loved and so passionate about? Or shut it down due to the lack of work from my partners. Surely I couldn't keep doing 98% of the work with 33% of the credit, it just didn't feel right at the time.

Then, I found Mike's Slicing Pie book on Amazon, read every single book he wrote within a few days, as I was willing to try anything to keep my company. I was able to save my company with the retrofit guide, while still in the early stages.

It's never too late, don't give up, try the retrofit guide that Mike talks about in this book.Go with the Slicing Pie model! Those "grunts" you are entering into business with now at this moment, no matter how well you know them or their track record, may just allow you to work your heart and soul away, while still keeping a large majority of your company and keeping the reward, don't let it happen! People change, expectations and long term goals change every day, every week, every month and every year. This model accounts for that, it's the best thing that has every happened in the world of start-ups, and will account for almost every situation you can think of, backed by tons of research.

If you go with the model, which you should, then use Mike's software, no matter how much of a budget you may be on it can't be worse than I was when I first started, I assure you, and I was able to pay for it. Don't waste your time with trying to track it on your own, why? Just use the online software.

All in all, this is the way to go if you're even considering making the switch, do it, and leave the one's not willing to work on your project behind, don't lose key talent in your company, how much talent will you perhaps be losing by not choosing this model? That's the key question to answer. What's the risk, what's the reward? A key member of your team you may gain due to this model, may just be worth any bit of discomfort or risk you may perceive at first as you adopt this dynamic equity agreement with your partners.

Nine in ten start-ups fail, that's what they tell us right? Well, maybe if everyone adopted this, only 8.5 in 10 start-ups will fail, and at least if they do fail, they won't be due to inadequate equity agreements which cause the major dysfunctions of team members that often cause failure.

Best wishes and good luck in your project and venture with Mike's slicing pie model.

I haven't been able to put the book down. I'm an idea guy, and I've always been a little leery of working with people to help develop them for the equity question. I'm currently working on my very first start up, and I'm anxious to share this with my partner. This is an amazing resource for a guy like myself, and I'm looking forward to using this a guiding light to help avoid some pitfalls for any company I start in the future. Thank you again for this book. I don't think there's one thing I learned in college more important than the contents of your book.

Awesome book. I’ve been working on starting a startup together with a friend but we’ve never found a fair way to track our contributions (so we’ve been avoiding the topic). Slicing Pie is the answer we were looking for.

Slicing Pie and it’s Grunt Fund concept has opened up huge possibilities and fueled my urgency to take this venture nationwide as I now know how I’m going overcome time and money challenges.

I wanted to personally thank you for writing “Slicing Pie” (just read it). I’m a young entrepreneur with several start-ups under my belt, and I’ve always struggled with the pre-revenue equity allocation. I’m struggling with it right now actually! Your book makes A LOT of sense to me, and I’m excited to start using the Grunt Fund in one of my current start-ups. So thank you again for being an inspirational author!

Just wanted to say well done on Slicing Pie, seriously great book! I’ve read lots of books on business and entrepreneurship, about 1 every 2 weeks for 15 years. Yours is one of the best, just wanted to let you know.

This makes me happy about going into business. I truly believe this is how all businesses should be run. I’ll do whatever I can to spread the word about your book!

I’m sure you get a million of these a day, but I just wanted to write you and personally thank you for creating this simple system and sharing it. I can’t tell you the heartache that I’ve gone through, loosing a business partner and best friend to the evils of a poorly thought out equity spit. Never again!

Loved it. Quite possibly changed my life

One of the most impressive aspects of Mike’s book is his accounting for the many different scenarios that can occur when partnering-up to start a company. The Excel docs available on his website allowed me to go right into a practical application of what was read. I am meeting with a potential partner/investor this week. As a result of reading the book I feel much more knowledgeable and confident, not just about the meeting, the potential for the business as well.

Great book… and a cool calculator too. You should be charging $500 bucks for this! The insight alone is worth ten times that.

I just wanted to let you know I read Slicing Pie and I thought it was fantastic! Thank you so much for writing such a comprehensive and easy to digest book on the subject – the best part about it is that it’s focused on being fair and I think that’s the most important thing.

Read about you in Start Start Up yesterday, bought the book, downloaded the calculator, signed up to trial [Harvest] ] (LOVE IT!) and am listening to your podcast. OMG I think I love you. Reading the concept, applying it to a friends current small business that is using a very funky retail strategy to empower women & promote & develop skills development, particularly in indigenous communities. We have been tortured by the last piece to fall into place – how to value sweat equity. YOU are a gift from the Universe and I am so grateful I found you. I love the values that are evident behind what you do. Your mission to embed this model as your own life reward was powerful – more strength to your arm : ) I will do what I can to promote it for you. It is just so right. respectfully, Antoinette PS You are a very relatable fella, your writing has great clarity and your pod cast gave a very good sense of who you are and where you are coming from.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and look forward to implementing the strategy. This book has provided the exact strategy that I was looking for. For me, this concept is like business crack…I can’t get enough! Just passed your information onto one of my clients. Fun, fun, fun!

I was at Start Houston last night when you presented. I thought it was absolutely great. So much so, I went to Amazon and ordered your book while I watched. You touched a very sensitive subject for me. In the past I avoided involving others in my projects because I didn’t know how to split equity in a way that I felt was fair to me. More than one of these had potential, but they were bigger than myself and I could have done more if I had help. More recently, the dread of the equity split actually prevented me from starting a project altogether. The grunt fund gives me the clear and fair solution to that problem. I’m so excited to learn more.

The Grunt Fund is the cleanest, clearest way to get any project off the ground. It’s easily understandable and cuts through the legal haze that can plague startups.

You’re a genius.

Mike – thank you so much for presenting today! It was a big success, lots of questions were asked, and people were very interested in learning more. In fact, I had one person tell me they already bought the book within the first 10 minutes and another person ask if you’d be willing to speak at their Meet Up for Milwaukee entrepreneurs!

Thank you for writing the book! Seriously has changed my life for the better. Having worked with Start-ups for a few years now I feel like a giant elephant just got off my back.

After spending Friday night reading Slicing Pie and talking to people using the Grunt Fund, today I presented my two possible co-founders with my equity plan using the Grunt Fund and… I’m actually quite surprised at how well it was received! Not only that, but it forced us into necessary conversations about the direction, stability, and roles of our company that we found very fruitful.

Slicing Pie is brilliant! You’ve cracked the code on a big problem for startups. I read this just in time!

We had a nightmare that involved a shareholder who held a sizable portion of the company, and there was no buyout clause on his shares. We ended up paying way more than we should have to get his shares back.

We’ve since bought copies of Slicing Pie for all of the people who work at Lunar Giant. I’m happy to say that not only does everyone love the book, but our productivity has gone way up because there are no longer questions of “who gets what” lingering in our minds.