I had some shareholder dispute when I had my small business. I studied the Alberta "Company Act" to figure out legal ways to get through this challenge. I think I became more knowledgeable than my lawyer.

The Act provides a basic legal rulebook for newly incorporated companies. If the founders want different rules, they can specify these rules that will override similar rules in the act. These are called "bylaws." It's best to create bylaws on incorporation because after there is a big process to changed them later.

If the founder wants to sell 10 shares at $100,000 each, he can. If he wants to sell 1,000,000 shares at $1 each, he can. So if divisibility of shares is an issue, it can be easily fixed. Better before incorporation, but possible after.

There was no legal provision to force investors to be active or passive. All this will be negotiated between the founder and investors as to what rights should be specified in the bylaws. Again, better before incorporation than after.

I issued non-voting shares in my company. My lawyer said it was not recommended, more on democratic principle than legal reasons, but I did it anyways.

Preferred shares are a great option (in my opinion) for finding capital. My understanding is that this way is much less popular today. But if a founder wants to issue them, the lawyers should have the right legal text to put into the bylaws.

Again, this is my experience of Alberta 30 years ago. I would have to extrapolate that flexible business arrangements are still possible throughout North America.