Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 17, 2011

One great solution I see is to hire an outstanding CFO who runs both. “We’re all equal co-founders and we don’t care about titles.&# I usually encourage people to think about titles like, “Founder & CTO&# or “Founder & VP Marketing.&#. Dilute your cash, equity or both.

Operations 292

Operations CTO Hire Startup Early Stage 292

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 9, 2011

I covered what I call “the co-founder mythology.&# Either you’re not technical and you think you need a technical co-founder or vice-versa. Conventional wisdom says that you gain far more in working as a team than you lose by diluted by half before you start. Hire your co-founder.

Cofounder 393

Cofounder Founder Vesting Founder Vesting 393

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 13, 2018

The company was going to hire a VP of Marketing. This sentence is worth reading multiple times as no one – not the person who hired you, the VC’s or your peers -is going to tell you when you’re hired that the company will likely outgrow you. Your original hires embody the company culture. I was devastated.

Part-Time VPE 334

Part-Time VPE Employee Cofounder Hiring 334

blog.nahurst.com

JULY 19, 2010

The graphic below balances the risks cofounders take with their relative contributions to help answer this question. This covers one of the most common situations I encounter: For a pre-funding web startup whose team includes only a non-technical cofounder, how much equity should an incoming technical cofounder get?

Technical Cofounder 43

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Equity Salary 43

Business Plan Blog

OCTOBER 4, 2013

Don’t hire people with skills and qualifications similar to yours. If you have a technical background and you are focused on product development, consider a co-founder with a sales and marketing background that can focus on selling your world class product. Hire based on functionality and avoid having too many C’s.

Part-Time VPE 79

Part-Time VPE Fractional VPE Cofounder CTO Hire 79

K9 Ventures

MAY 6, 2015

Conventional wisdom in the startup world dictates that two founders are ideal for a startup. There are lots of famous pairs of duo co-founders: Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Jerry Yang and David Filo, Hewlett and Packard, Bill Gates and Paul Allen. Having the right co-founder is perhaps the single most valuable thing in a startup.

Cofounder 48

Cofounder Founder Silicon Valley Technical Cofounder 48

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 1, 2009

I was reading one of my favorite websites for entrepreneurs, VentureHacks, this weekend and noticed that they are running a long piece on how to pick a co-founder. Once it’s set up I recommend bringing in a co-founder and giving them 10-30% of the company depending upon when you bring them in. You’ll be fine.

Hiring 289

Hiring Cofounder Dilution Startup 289

thinkspace.com

SEPTEMBER 7, 2012

How to Divide Equity to Startup Founders, Advisors, and Employees. The part that I’d like to zero in on is when you’ve got a high growth company what are some of the best practices out there to distribute equity to the founders, advisors, and employees? Equity for Founders. Should founders have anti-dilution rights?

Equity 62

Equity Employee Founder CTO Hire 62

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 5, 2010

I have personally sold many copies of his book, and continue to recommend it as one of the most important books a startup founder can read. Brant and Patrick undertook a difficult challenge: to provide a generally accessible introduction to Customer Development, without diluting its impact or dumbing-down its principles.

Customer Development 166

Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer 166

JANUARY 9, 2014

No clear vision or purpose This should be the starting point for any startup founder, but it’s often overlooked. By trying to appeal to everyone and adding features left, right and centre, you will actually dilute your message and could end up with a complex, bloated product. Life’s too short to build something nobody wants.”

Early Stage 102

Early Stage Startup Cofounder Design 102

betashop.com

OCTOBER 8, 2012

When we pivoted from fabulis to Fab, we pivoted towards building a business around the unique tastemaker talents of one of our founders, Bradford Shellhammer. Have amazing co-founders who are better at what they do than you could ever be. Founders need to personally own something big themselves. It’s that important.

Technical Review 108

Technical Review Technology Software Review Valuation 108

www.avc.com

SEPTEMBER 22, 2011

The most common comment in this long and complicated MBA Mondays series on Employee Equity is the question of how much equity should you grant when you make a hire. For your first key hires, three, five, maybe as much as ten, you will probably not be able to use any kind of formula. First, a caveat. Let's say the number is $25mm.

Equity 64

Equity Employee CTO Hire Fractional CTO 64

The Next Web

AUGUST 19, 2013

He is the co-­founder and CEO of Quote Roller and PandaDoc. It’s always better to be earn money, not just raise it, as money you earn doesn’t dilute your ownership and reassures your investors. It’s always better to be earn money, not just raise it, as money you earn doesn’t dilute your ownership and reassures your investors.

Belarus 137

Belarus Viral Channel Startup 137

View from Seed

APRIL 30, 2015

What is it, and how should founders think about it? note: We’d like to be extra clear that founders should not take on venture debt if they don’t have 100% visibility into repaying the loan, as banks that need to recoup their loan my force the company or you as the guarantor into liquidation or bankruptcy.

Term Sheet 120

Term Sheet Equity Startup Seed Stage 120

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 16, 2016

By Bryan Miles, CEO and co-founder, Miles Advisory Group, Inc. But entrepreneurs face other concerns that compete with this growth focus, including hiring, maintaining current revenue sources and distinguishing themselves from the competition. Bryan Miles is CEO & co-founder of Miles Advisory Group, Inc.

Cofounder 100

Cofounder Balance Sheet Small Business Administration Technical Review 100

YoungUpstarts

MAY 6, 2019

You are looking for cofounders that can help you build a product. You have finally found a cofounder that can take care of the startup. If you are getting funded for the first time, which means that you have not diluted the shares of your company, you will be receiving Series A funding. Hiring more resources. Commitment.

Startup 113

Startup Technical Cofounder Merger Early Stage 113

David Teten

JANUARY 21, 2021

(co-written with Jamie Finney, Founding Partner at Greater Colorado Venture Fund. This essay is part of a series on alternative VC: I: Revenue-Based Investing: a new option for founders who care about control. III: Why are Revenue-Based VCs investing in so many women and underrepresented founders?

Equity 78

Equity Revenue Cofounder Colorado 78

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 9, 2013

Should you increase your burn rate by adding 2 senior hires who will help you ship faster or sell more but then have less time for fund raising? Should you raise $3 million in stead of $2 million even though it means more dilution so that you will have a longer runway? Or maybe their existence itself will help accelerate fund raising.

Cofounder 413

Cofounder Burn Rate Dilution Valuation 413

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 15, 2009

At IMVU, we would occasionally hire someone from a more traditional organization who had a hard time letting go of their “best practices&# and habits. But for engineers that have the tendency to wait too long before shipping, they too have lessons to learn. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

Continuous Deployment 167

Continuous Deployment Software Review San Francisco Lean 167

This is going to be BIG.

JANUARY 18, 2024

Some of these folks are founders and CEOs, but not at high-growth tech startups. Helpful investors should use their sage advice and support of the founder to make them into better, data-driven decision makers to impact a company, instead of relying on their contractually held voting rights. What’s Simply Hired, you ask?

.Net 88

.Net Cap Table Startup Technical Review 88

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2013

For starters let me use “CEO” as a proxy to include her “inner circle” which might mean co-founders or might just mean senior execs of the business. The Mind of the Founder. The mind of a founder is wired differently than most people. The startup CEO was not the original founder.

Startup 417

Startup Dilution San Diego Stock Options 417

David Teten

AUGUST 19, 2019

RBI normally requires founders to pay back their investors with a fixed percentage of revenue until they have finished providing the investor with a fixed return on capital, which they agree upon in advance. For background, see Revenue-Based Investing: A New Option for Founders who Care About Control. Capital need of up to $1.5M

Revenue 60

Revenue Technical Review Software Review Equity 60

VC Cafe

SEPTEMBER 26, 2010

Very cool concept and I want to thank the founder Adil Mohammed for inviting me to take part in it. I’ve learned this first hand from Mark Gerson, the founder of Gerson Lehrman Group. As the founder, you’re the number one sales person of the company and it is not a function you can outsource right away.

Elevator Pitch 102

Elevator Pitch Incubator Technical Review Startup 102

Duct Tape Marketing

APRIL 7, 2022

Marcel is the CEO & Co-Founder of Parakeeto, a company dedicated to helping agencies measure and improve their profitability by streamlining their operations and reporting systems. I think one of the things that often gets overlooked in the agency space is really deeply understanding the job the agencies being hired to do.

Cofounder 94

Cofounder Hosting Networking Software Review 94

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

And as everyone’s attention starts to focus on those same indicators, their value is being diluted. We’ve learned that data can be used as a reality-check against vision without diluting the mission or reverting to “sum of all features&# focus groups. Which leads to the next problem: We need new status indicators.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

www.inc.com

SEPTEMBER 24, 2011

Back in 1997, Randy Parker was staring at a blank whiteboard, wondering where hed find the money to hire the employees and consultants he needed to build his new product. "We Chip Morse , cofounder and partner with Morse, Barnes-Brown & Pendleton P.C., Mediation and Arbitration Agreement -- Sample. based in Waltham, Mass.

Fractional CTO 40

Fractional CTO Equity Iowa Technical Cofounder 40

www.quora.com

SEPTEMBER 22, 2011

Type to Add and Search Questions; Search Topics and People Startups Startup Compensation Entrepreneurship Compensation Stock Options Major Internet Companies Silicon Valley Why is there such a large founder to early employee equity drop-off? The real question here is: why is it fair for founders to get so much more?

Equity 40

Equity Employee Founder Cofounder 40

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2015

Well, if you have an option pool of only 6% and have many more execs to hire to build out your team you’re going to ask for more options to be created in the future. If you’re a solo founder and haven’t built out your team or engineers I’m likely to want 15+%. Those are the big three. Size of my check.

Pre-Money Valuation 150

Pre-Money Valuation Option Pool Post-Money Valuation Dilution 150

Austin Startup

JUNE 30, 2017

Background / Related Reading: Founder Education Gatekeepers and Ecosystems What is the purpose of universities? in exchange for a price: usually 6–9% of equity, with (sometimes) heavy anti-dilution rights, and pro-rata rights. Top accelerators have corrected an imbalance between the strength of founders’ networks and those of VCs.

Curation 48

Curation Startup Cofounder Equity 48

Hunter Walker

AUGUST 7, 2017

Employee options pools, typically created at the point of financings, shouldn’t be treated as haggling over dilution, but rather a strategic resource that will help founders build the best team and, by extension, a more valuable company.

Equity 119

Equity Pre-Money Valuation Option Pool Founder 119

Startup Company Lawyer

MAY 4, 2009

Adeo Ressi , the founding member of TheFunded , recently announced the establishment of TheFunded Founder Institute. The Founder Institute helps founders launch innovative companies by providing training, services, and company-building assignments, such as incorporating the business, filing provision patents, and setting up books and records.

Founder 28

Founder Warrant San Francisco Intellectual Property 28

The Startup Lawyer

AUGUST 22, 2011

. “Control&# of a startup can manifest itself in various forms such as equal (or investor-favorable) representation on the board of directors or a requirement of obtaining seed investor approval for new hires and/or budget matters. Non-Dilution. Personal Guaranty.

Angel Investor 99

Angel Investor Dividend Dilution Cofounder 99

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 9, 2014

This is a guest post from Stephano Kim , former co-founder of Web 1.0 Many startup CEOs hire COOs or launch companies with a co-founder carrying the title. When should founders hire one? Founders seek COOs for many reasons. The most valuable resource a founder has is his/her time and energy.

Hiring 336

Hiring Cofounder Startup Technical Cofounder 336

View from Seed

APRIL 16, 2015

Often, when I speak to very early-stage founders, the conversation around value focuses on achievements. These might include: Bring on a technical co-founder. This is especially true for less experienced founders. Get a working version of the product. Get three paying customers. Launch a successful Kickstarter campaign.

Seed Stage 120

Seed Stage Cofounder Early Stage Startup 120

Andrew Payne

SEPTEMBER 9, 2017

If an early very experienced developer has 1%, and a less senior dev has 0.5%, those become two reference points for the next dev hire. But, how should founders divide things up in the very beginning , where none of these internal reference points exist? And, how can founders talk about percentages before any funding?

Equity 71

Equity Founder Vesting Dilution 71

Up and Running

MARCH 13, 2013

” “Do you trust – really trust – your prospective business partners and cofounders?” ” “Hire slowly. ’ But if you do that, your efforts will be diluted. His list of 20 includes these short gems: “Never confuse activity with progress.” Fire quickly.” ” “Focus.

Entrepreneur 90

Entrepreneur Cofounder Dilution Hiring 90

venturehacks.com

OCTOBER 21, 2010

Use a hiring plan to justify a small option pool, increase your share price, and increase your effective valuation. Reading on, the term sheet states, “The $8 million pre-money valuation includes an option pool equal to 20% of the post-financing fully diluted capitalization.&# Solution: Use a hiring plan to size the option pool.

Option Pool 68

Option Pool Pre-Money Valuation Dilution Warrant 68