It's pretty normal for co-founders to have equal (large) stakes. If there are 8 co-founders (such as in this case, which is a very large number but fine) then each could have 12.5%. 20% would be impossible.
And that's pretty much what any 'traditional' (as in bootstrapped) company would do, and its working capital would be the initial buy-in. That way the company can open a bank account before the first customer pays and has a way to rent and office and get an internet connection.
Later, after operating the company for 5 or 10 years the value of the brand would be reflected in the value of the company (or goodwill, if you wish).
This is actually fairly common with architects, dentist collectives and legal offices where partners are brought in over the years and rotate back out again when they reach their pensionable age.
This collective the way it is described here is just a way for a bunch of individual to operate under a common brand without assigning any value whatsoever to their creations other than the money flowing through the company, the company is deemed to be worthless (which they may very well be right about at the founding date, but which I would be surprised would still be the case after a decade with a nice fat portfolio of customers and a steady stream of income).
And then someone wants to retire and suddenly that lack of 'buy-in' from the next partner looks like a major stumbling block.
So this is a fairly idealistic document without much in terms of future proofing as far as I can see.
And that's pretty much what any 'traditional' (as in bootstrapped) company would do, and its working capital would be the initial buy-in. That way the company can open a bank account before the first customer pays and has a way to rent and office and get an internet connection.
Later, after operating the company for 5 or 10 years the value of the brand would be reflected in the value of the company (or goodwill, if you wish).
This is actually fairly common with architects, dentist collectives and legal offices where partners are brought in over the years and rotate back out again when they reach their pensionable age.
This collective the way it is described here is just a way for a bunch of individual to operate under a common brand without assigning any value whatsoever to their creations other than the money flowing through the company, the company is deemed to be worthless (which they may very well be right about at the founding date, but which I would be surprised would still be the case after a decade with a nice fat portfolio of customers and a steady stream of income).
And then someone wants to retire and suddenly that lack of 'buy-in' from the next partner looks like a major stumbling block.
So this is a fairly idealistic document without much in terms of future proofing as far as I can see.