Terms of Use

1. About This Service

The Co-Founders Agreement Discussion Guide ("the Platform") is a free, structured questionnaire tool operated by Linda Heng Mediation ("the Operator", "we", "us"). The Platform is designed to help startup co-founders prepare for the critical decisions involved in forming a founders agreement. By using this Platform, you ("the User", "you") agree to these Terms of Use.

2. Access and Registration

Access to the Platform requires a unique invite link issued by the Operator. To obtain an invite link, you must submit a request through the Platform's access request form. The Operator reserves the right to approve or decline access requests at its sole discretion.

You are responsible for keeping your invite link confidential and sharing it only with your co-founders. You must not share your invite link publicly or with individuals who are not part of your founding team.

3. Data Ownership and Research Use

This includes but is not limited to:

• Aggregated research: Your responses may be combined with those of other users to produce anonymised, aggregated insights about co-founder dynamics, conflict patterns, and agreement structures.
• Academic and professional publications: Anonymised findings derived from Platform data may be published in academic papers, professional articles, presentations, or reports.
• Platform improvement: Your responses may be used to improve the questionnaire, develop new features, and enhance the facilitation methodology.
• Training and education: Anonymised case studies derived from Platform data may be used in training materials for mediators, facilitators, and legal professionals.

The Operator will not sell your individual, identifiable responses to third parties. Where data is shared externally for research purposes, it will be anonymised so that individual founders and startups cannot be identified.

4. Confidentiality Between Founders

Each founder's individual responses are private and visible only to that founder and the Operator. Co-founders cannot see each other's individual responses through the Platform. The combined summary, which aggregates all founders' responses without comparative analysis, is available for download by all team members once all founders have completed the questionnaire. The comparative analysis (showing alignment and divergence between founders) is available only to the Operator for use in professional facilitation services.

5. Not Legal Advice

The Platform is a preparation and discussion tool. It does not provide legal advice, and the outputs generated by the Platform (including the combined summary) do not constitute a legal document. You should engage qualified legal counsel to draft your founders agreement based on the outputs of this process. The Operator accepts no liability for decisions made on the basis of Platform outputs without independent legal review.

6. Facilitation Services

Professional facilitation services offered by the Operator are separate from the free Platform access and are subject to a separate engagement agreement. The Platform is designed to complement, not replace, professional facilitation for teams navigating complex or contentious discussions.

7. Acceptable Use

You agree not to: submit false or misleading information; use the Platform for any purpose other than preparing a founders agreement; attempt to access other teams' data; use automated tools to submit responses; or interfere with the Platform's operation. The Operator reserves the right to terminate access for any user who violates these terms.

8. Data Retention

Your responses are retained indefinitely for research purposes as described in Section 3. If you wish to request deletion of your individual responses, you may contact the Operator at [email protected]. The Operator will make reasonable efforts to accommodate such requests, subject to the research licence granted in Section 3.

9. Limitation of Liability

The Platform is provided "as is" without warranties of any kind. The Operator shall not be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, or consequential damages arising from your use of the Platform, including but not limited to loss of data, business interruption, or reliance on Platform outputs.

10. Changes to These Terms

The Operator may update these Terms of Use from time to time. Continued use of the Platform after changes are posted constitutes acceptance of the revised terms. Material changes will be communicated via the Platform or by email.

11. Contact

For questions about these Terms of Use or the Platform, contact: [email protected]