Founder War Room
Your founder finance workspace.
Start with your formation documents, founder agreements, and equity records. Keep them in a company-controlled local or synced folder—a founder war room. As you raise capital and prepare employee options, your AI works from that history. Breakpoint Engine supplies the financial mathematics. Your evidence and answers stay organized for what comes next.
Download the working document checklist
Both skills are Apache-2.0. Copy them, adapt them, and run them with Codex, Cursor, Claude Code, or another agent that can work with your files.
founder-war-room/
├── company-profile.yaml
├── source-ledger.csv
├── 01-formation-and-identifiers/
├── 02-governance-and-board/
├── 03-capitalization/
│ ├── cap-table/
│ ├── securities/
│ ├── options-and-warrants/
│ └── debt-and-convertibles/
├── 04-financings/
├── 05-people-and-equity/
├── 06-financial-and-tax/
├── 07-market-and-business/
├── 08-commercial-ip-and-risk/
├── 09-diligence/
└── 10-valuation/409a/cases/YYYY-MM-DD/The War Room is the context. Your AI is the interface. Breakpoint Engine is the calculation layer.
One company record, built over time
From your first agreement to your next round.
You do not need a new platform for each milestone. The war room carries the history, the skills guide your AI, and the engine computes when a financial question arises.
01
Form the company
Formation documents, bylaws, founder equity agreements, IP assignments, and approvals.
“What have we agreed, what is signed, and what is still missing?”
Keep: A source ledger and an organized founding record.
02
Explore the financing
Proposed term sheets, SAFEs, notes, current capitalization, and alternative terms.
“What does this proposal mean for ownership, preferences, and founder outcomes?”
Keep: Cited scenarios with assumptions and engine results kept together.
03
Close the round
Executed agreements, amendments, side letters, proceeds, and conversions.
“What actually closed, and how does it change our capitalization?”
Keep: A reconciled post-close record, separate from earlier proposals.
04
Prepare the valuation
Final security rights, dated financials, business evidence, and management answers.
“What supports the value of our common stock as of this date?”
Keep: A method memo, calculations, verification, and draft valuation report.
05
Support option pricing
Valuation support, equity plan, intended grant dates, and authorized approvals.
“What supports our FMV determination and proposed exercise price?”
Keep: A decision package with the reliance basis and outstanding actions visible.
06
Keep the history working
New grants, financial updates, material events, and the next financing.
“What changed since the last case, and what needs to be updated?”
Keep: A new dated case that preserves—not replaces—the previous record.
Already preparing a raise?
Start where your company is today.
Bring the records below when available. The skill inventories what exists, distinguishes executed documents from drafts, and identifies what is missing. A missing record stays an open question—not an invented fact.
- Ownership and rights: current charter and amendments, cap table or stock ledger, preferred terms, SAFEs, notes, warrants, option grants, and approvals.
- The financing: term sheet, executed financing agreements, side letters, closing date, proceeds, and any secondary transactions.
- The business: recent financials, cash and debt, runway, forecasts if available, product and market context, and material risks or changes.
- The valuation decision: valuation date, intended option-grant timing, equity plan, prior valuations if any, and management’s answers to unresolved questions.
A draft term sheet supports a financing scenario. A post-close valuation needs the final rights and capitalization. Drafting a document does not execute an agreement or authorize an equity grant.
Your folder remains company-controlled, but using a hosted AI or the engine transmits the relevant inputs to those services. Check access and retention settings before sharing confidential records; keep credentials and unnecessary personal information out of the case.
One folder, repeated answers
Keep the record. Build on the evidence.
Formation records, charters, board approvals, securities, financing agreements, option grants, financials, forecasts, product and market evidence already answer most of the recurring questions founders face. The war room gives AI a durable place to find them without asking Breakpoint Engine to store them.
Company-owned
Local, Dropbox, or Box
Use storage you control. Give founders, finance, counsel, and investors access only to the records they need. A shared company record does not mean unrestricted sharing.
AI-readable
Sources, not summaries
Preserve original documents and amendments. The workflow asks AI to cite material facts and distinguish provided, checked, management-confirmed, and unresolved information.
Portable
No platform lock-in
Keep dated inputs, calculations, reports, and decisions in ordinary files. You can use a cap-table platform too; this workflow does not require migrating to one.
The AI-driven 409A workflow
From source documents to a review-ready valuation package.
Prepare the record throughout the raise so you are ready to begin when the round closes. Final analysis uses executed terms and facts as of the valuation date. Missing evidence or an unsuitable method stays an open issue, not a completed valuation.
01
Organize
Create the private folder structure or index the company records you already maintain in a local or synced directory.
02
Reconcile
Let AI read the governing documents, financing agreements, cap table, grants, notes, and amendments—with a citation for every material fact.
03
Complete the interview
Answer the arm’s-length, material-event, business, financial, market, and eligibility questions the skill cannot resolve from records.
04
Research
Have AI collect dated market evidence, comparable companies, volatility, rates, term, and DLOM support.
05
Calculate
Breakpoint Engine performs the OPM backsolve, class allocation, common-stock value, DLOM, and sensitivities deterministically.
06
Verify and report
A separate implementation recomputes the result. AI assembles the evidence ledger, method memo, report, appendices, and board package.
Put the skills to work
Copy a starting prompt, then make it yours.
Open your company folder with an AI agent that has the relevant skill installed. Copy one of these prompts into the conversation, replace any bracketed detail, and continue naturally as the skill works through your files and asks only for information it cannot establish from the record.
Existing company folder
Organize the war room
Use the organize-founder-war-room skill to inspect this project without moving or deleting anything. Create the missing private war-room structure, inventory the documents already here, populate the source ledger, and give me a short list of unresolved records or contradictions.Before the next decision
Check the record
Review this war room for [CURRENT COMPANY STAGE OR DECISION]. Do not move, delete, or overwrite source documents. Show which material facts are provided, checked against sources, confirmed by management, or unresolved. Identify missing agreements, amendments, approvals, and material changes. Ask me only what the record cannot establish. Save a dated readiness review with the next actions; do not mark an unresolved item complete.Proposed financing
Understand the terms
Read [PROPOSED FINANCING DOCUMENT] alongside the current capitalization and governing documents in this war room. Separate proposed terms from executed rights and identify missing or conflicting information. Confirm the normalized inputs with me, then use Breakpoint Engine to compare [ALTERNATIVES] for dilution, preferences, and founder outcomes. Save the sources, assumptions, engine inputs and results, and explanation as a dated scenario. Do not treat the proposal as a closed financing.New valuation case
Prepare the complete analysis
Use the prepare-a-409a-valuation skill to open a new case for [VALUATION DATE]. Search this war room before asking questions. Build a cited evidence ledger and reconciled capitalization, complete the management interview with me, determine whether a recent-round OPM backsolve is appropriate, research the dated assumptions, run Breakpoint Engine, independently recompute the material results, and prepare the complete unsigned valuation package for review.An option price your team can understand.
The common-stock value supports the company’s option-pricing decision; it is not the same as the price paid for preferred shares. The exercise price is what an employee pays per share when exercising an option. An option can have economic value even when that price equals the current common-stock value.
For example, a $1 exercise price and $1 common-stock value mean no immediate exercise gain. If common later has a $5 value, the difference is $4 per share before taxes and costs—not guaranteed proceeds. Vesting, exercise windows, expiration, and liquidity still matter.
Tax treatment depends on the award and applicable rules, not just matching these two numbers. Most nonstatutory options without readily determinable fair market value are not taxed at grant; exercise can create taxable income. ISOs have different rules, including possible alternative minimum tax at exercise. IRS stock-option guidance.
Keep the valuation, its reliance basis, grant approvals, and plan documents together. The company approves the grants; the workflow prepares the supporting record.
Use the files with the AI you work in.
In a file-capable agent, open the local or synced folder and install the relevant skills. In a chat environment, make the documents available through supported attachments or a storage connector. Access to files does not automatically provide skill execution, code tools, or write-back: check those capabilities and save the resulting files back to your war room.
Start with the organization skill, then connect the engine for calculations. Use the valuation skill for the full case procedure. Today’s foundation is the open skills and ordinary files—not a separate war-room management application.
A documented pathway to a 409A valuation
409A’s general valuation standard does not require an outside appraiser in every case. AI-assisted work can support that pathway: the question is whether the method and its application are reasonable for the company and valuation date—not whether the report was drafted by AI. Read the IRS explanation.
Safe harbor is a separate determination. The eligible-startup route requires a good-faith written valuation performed by a qualified person; the independent-appraisal route requires a qualifying independent appraisal. Model capability and accurate mathematics do not establish those qualifications. Read the valuation rules.
The skills guide preparation of the evidence, assumptions, calculations, verification, and report. The company must establish the applicable reliance basis and approve its grants. Breakpoint Engine supplies computation, not an independent appraisal or a guarantee of IRS acceptance.
Confidence comes from the case record: traceable sources, dated assumptions, reproducible calculations, and resolved discrepancies. An arm’s-length financing is evidence about the transaction—not a label conferred by an accurate engine. See the methodology and verification scope.
Keep the records. Bring the AI. Tap the engine.
Install the open skills, connect Breakpoint Engine, and make your next financing analysis reproducible from the files you already control.