Frequently Asked Questions

A Customer Stock Option Plan (CSOP) lets you reward your most loyal users, advocates, and community members with equity-like upside, without triggering the legal and administrative burden of issuing real shares.

Think of it as a next-generation loyalty program, where the reward isn't a discount or points - it's a long-term stake in your success. When your company grows, so can their reward.

Historically, growth was fueled by great products, discounts, and referral codes. But the landscape has shifted. Here's why ownership can be a GTM superpower:

• Capital-Light Companies Are the New Normal: In a post-AI world, companies can build, launch, and scale with far less capital and headcount. We're entering an era where one-person startups can achieve what once took entire teams. That means less dilution is needed to build something valuable—and more flexibility to share the upside with your earliest users and supporters.
• Fierce Competition & High Churn: The number of tools, apps, and platforms is exploding—and customer loyalty is harder than ever. Giving users real ownership creates stickiness, turns users into champions, and reduces churn by tying their success to yours.
• The Rise of Participatory Brands: We're seeing a cultural shift: people want to contribute to and co-own the products they love, not just consume them.
• Equity Is the Most Valuable (and Affordable) Thing You Can Offer: Most early-stage companies can't afford to pay everyone cash—nor should they. Equity has always been the way startups reward those who bet on them early. A CSOP extends this logic to your customers and community—those who grow the company with you.

TL;DR: Ownership is no longer a perk—it's a modern GTM strategy. It builds loyalty, reduces churn, drives referrals, and deepens emotional alignment with your brand. In the world we're entering, it's one of the smartest ways to grow.

It's entirely up to you.

Each company defines eligibility based on what matters most to its business—whether that's referrals, purchases, feedback, community contributions, or simply early adoption. You have full control over who qualifies, when, and why.

That said, we recommend starting simple and borrowing from what works—like ESOPs.

Employee stock option plans have decades of precedent and offer a clean, proven structure. A 4-year vesting schedule with monthly vesting (after a short cliff, if desired) is a great starting point. It rewards long-term engagement without requiring you to track every single user action in real time.

Yes. We've designed CSOPs to avoid triggering securities regulations by structuring them as phantom equity, bonus plans, or similar non-purchasable instruments.

No public offering, no accredited investor requirements, no cap table dilution—just upside, legally and cleanly delivered. We also provide legal templates vetted by startup counsel to help you launch with confidence.

We use phantom shares, shadow equity, or contractual bonus units—tools that mirror the value of real equity without requiring share issuance.

These units track your company's growth and convert into a cash-equivalent payout upon a major liquidity event (like an IPO or acquisition). If you choose to evolve the program into actual equity later, we make that transition smooth.

Not exactly - at least not in the way you might think.

You're not issuing real shares or handing over legal ownership. Instead, CSOPs are typically structured as phantom equity or bonus units, which means:

• You don't actually dilute your cap table
• You retain full control over the terms, eligibility, and vesting
• You don't owe dividends or shareholder rights
• You only pay out if there's a major exit, like an acquisition or IPO

Think of it as a performance bonus tied to your company's valuation—one that only triggers if things go really well.

A few decades ago, giving employees stock options (ESOPs) was seen as radical. Now, ESOPs are standard - baked into company structures, term sheet negotiations, and every cap table conversation.

Why? Because they work. ESOPs helped early-stage companies attract top talent, align incentives, and build long-term loyalty, even when they couldn't offer big salaries.

CSOPs take the same principle and apply it to your customers and community. It gives your most engaged users a reason to root for your success. You're turning fans into partners—without giving up control, issuing equity, or committing to future obligations.

So while yes, you're sharing in the upside, you're doing it in a way that's: Legally clean, Operationally light, and Strategically smart. It's not dilution—it's motivation.

Absolutely. You can configure vesting schedules, milestone-based conditions, time limits, and clawback clauses to match your goals and ensure fairness.

In the future, our platform will give you full flexibility with built-in governance tools - plus workflows that keep it all transparent and legally sound. You decide who earns what and under what terms.

No, you're not locked in forever - and you remain in control.

Unlike issuing actual equity, CSOPs are structured as phantom or bonus units, which means you're not giving away legal ownership. You're making a contractual promise to deliver a reward under specific conditions (usually at a major exit), and you define those conditions upfront.

If circumstances change—say, your company pivots or you want to revise the program—you can adjust eligibility, pause future grants, or modify unvested awards, as long as you follow the terms you've communicated to users.

While it's important to uphold your commitments to maintain trust and brand credibility, you're not handing over permanent rights or triggering compliance obligations. You have the flexibility to evolve the program as your business grows.

If your company is acquired, goes public, or merges into a larger entity, our system validates which customers have vested, calculates their payouts or share equivalents, handles all user-facing communication, and provides a clean, exportable audit trail. You stay focused on the transaction—we handle the CSOP execution behind the scenes.

Everything you need to run a compliant, rewarding CSOP program:

• A powerful admin dashboard to define, manage, and monitor the program
• Secure user dashboards for each grantee to track their ownership
• Legal templates tailored for phantom equity structures
• Embeddable UI components or full API access for custom integrations
• A communications toolkit to help you launch and explain the program clearly to your community

Soon, yes.

White-labeling is on our roadmap. You'll be able to fully customize the branding so your CSOP lives natively inside your product or community. We stay invisible—you get the credit for giving your users a slice of the upside.

Onboarding is fast, collaborative, and tailored. We work with you to:

• Define your program goals and earning logic
• Generate the necessary legal and tax-friendly documents
• Integrate the platform into your product or community flow
• Plan your launch messaging and rollout strategy

From kickoff to go-live, we're your partner in designing a seamless and scalable ownership experience for your users.