Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 8, 2022

Most entrepreneurs struggle with many startup founders quandaries in building their business, and these key dilemmas are probably the biggest source of pain and failure for the entrepreneur lifestyle. Should you start a company solo or find co-founders to help you? The co-founder relationship dilemma.

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Founder Hockey Stick Cofounder Liquidity Event 325

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 17, 2009

These periods of time can leave a founder very vulnerable in the future. Assuming normal valuations at fund raising rounds you’ll be down to 6-12% after you’ve created a stock-option pool and raised capital. But these people seldom make retirement money from the stock options on these companies.

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Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 10, 2019

Most entrepreneurs struggle with many startup founders quandaries in building their business, and these key dilemmas are probably the biggest source of pain and failure for the entrepreneur lifestyle. Should you start a company solo or find co-founders to help you? The co-founder relationship dilemma.

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Hockey Stick Cofounder Liquidity Event Startup 243

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?

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SoCal CTO

JUNE 9, 2010

He’d wasted a year of his life and had a pile of stock options that weren’t very interesting. But founders need to know how to ask for their advice and when to ignore it. Consultants Don’t Pivot, Founders Do - Steve Blank , May 13, 2010 Consultants can help startups leverage their limited resources. Tesla is not.

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YoungUpstarts

JULY 17, 2020

by Juan Pablo Segura, President and Co-Founder of Babyscripts. If possible, offering stock options in lieu of raises or to counteract pay cuts is another way to build security. In the rapidly changing climate of a pandemic world, corporations have had to radically rethink their strategies for survival.

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Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 14, 2014

Most entrepreneurs struggle with many startup Founders dilemmas in building their business, and these key dilemmas are probably the biggest source of pain and failure for the entrepreneur lifestyle. Should you start a company solo or find co-Founders to help you? The co-Founder relationship dilemma.

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Hockey Stick Cofounder Entrepreneur Liquidity Event 268

The Startup Magazine

JUNE 1, 2023

By Daniel Sokolovksy, Co-Founder and CEO, WARP and Troy Lester, Co-Founder and CRO, WARP The dissolution of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) was more than just a bank collapse, it was a reality check for both startups and the VCs that fund them. As a founder, ask yourself – does your business actually warrant VC funding?

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Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 19, 2017

Most entrepreneurs struggle with many startup founders dilemmas in building their business, and these key dilemmas are probably the biggest source of pain and failure for the entrepreneur lifestyle. Should you start a company solo or find co-founders to help you? The co-founder relationship dilemma.

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Hockey Stick Cofounder Entrepreneur Liquidity Event 144

Scalable Startup

AUGUST 9, 2018

In their quest for sustainable growth, the elusive dream for most first time founders is that first funding. This can either come from the founder(s) own bank account or from outside investors. At this stage you’re essentially selling yourself and your cofounders. One of the easiest mistake to fix is timing.

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YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 24, 2017

Hammer Out the Details Between Partners. Before you even get the business off the ground, it’s important to ensure that you and the co-founders (if any) agree on everything. Every startup should have a written founder agreement, which should include the following points: The roles and responsibilities of each member.

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crowdSPRING Blog

NOVEMBER 7, 2014

10 Ways to Make Your Relationship With Your Co-Founder A Success – crowdspring.co/1sSi21Y. Startup Equity and Stock Options: What’s It Worth to You? The @crowdSPRING community partners with US State Dept for Social Impact | Justmeans – crowdspring.co/1ux55RH. – crowdspring.co/1sSpg62. 10baTD3.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 19, 2013

Most entrepreneurs struggle with many startup Founders dilemmas in building their business, and these key dilemmas are probably the biggest source of pain and failure for the entrepreneur lifestyle. Should you start a company solo or find co-Founders to help you? The co-Founder relationship dilemma.

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Founder Hockey Stick Cofounder Liquidity Event 245

Ben's Blog

APRIL 28, 2010

When my partner Marc wrote his post describing our firm , the most controversial component of our investment strategy was our preference for founding CEOs. In this post, I describe why we prefer to fund companies whose founder will run the company as its CEO. So, why are great technology companies so often run by their founders?

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Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Software Review 78

YoungUpstarts

AUGUST 17, 2011

Schools can’t give stock options, but they can give praise and non-economic rewards to those who uncover a new idea that works. Michael Feuer cofounded OfficeMax in 1988 starting with one store and $20,000 of his own money, a partner, and a small group of investors. Know when it’s time to pull the plug.

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Cofounder Programming Leadership Ohio 222

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MARCH 11, 2014

Listen to this episode if you want to hear about a founder who has a product and users and paying customers … and is trying to figure out how to take his company to the next level and grow faster. Well yeah, you could potentially find a cofounder. I first did it for the founder. Why not get a partner? Jason: Yeah.

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Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 18, 2009

Yesterday I wrote a blog post ( here ) in which I urged people to not have too many founders. These situations are only compounded if you have 3 or more founders. I know that many people reading this will be in companies with 3+ founders and aren’t having any friction. They agreed to all be co-founders.

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thestartuplawyer.com

FEBRUARY 24, 2010

He obviously never launched a startup and got shafted by a co-founder. He obviously never launched a startup and got shafted by a co-founder. You can start by examining every aspect of the co-founder relationship. Don’t leave anything out just because you and your co-founders already talked about it.

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www.joelonsoftware.com

MARCH 24, 2010

Teamwork skills are excellent at the project, company, and industry-partner levels. As the company grows, the initial package of stock options offered to new hires will be lower and lower. At any given time, stock option awards are equal based on level. Once a year well grant people more stock options.

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Software Review Stock Options Salary Technical Review 48

www.inc.com

SEPTEMBER 24, 2011

"I advise my clients that you offer stock only after youve searched your heart and soul and cant come up with a way to pay with anything else," says Thomas H. Durkin , managing partner with the Boston -based law firm Lucash, Gesmer & Updegrove LLP. Chip Morse , cofounder and partner with Morse, Barnes-Brown & Pendleton P.C.,

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Gust

NOVEMBER 4, 2011

This discussion expands on my Quora answer to a specific question: “ Why were the stock options of MySpace employees worthless even though the company was sold to News Corporation for hundreds of millions? ” The complete story includes a startup-within-a-startup, investments and exits by two VC firms, and some genuine corporate drama.

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infochachkie.com

SEPTEMBER 24, 2011

Basing a consultant’s compensation on the incremental revenue they generate is a great example of a deal that is on The Fringe (for other creative approaches to partnering, see Agreements on The Fringe). The final straw came when I asked the latest 25-year old a simple ‘yes / no’ question related to stock options. Cheers, Brian.

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ReadWriteStart

JUNE 15, 2012

While our startup founders disagreed on many details - particularly the proper role of equity - a common theme did emerge: Developer rock stars know what they’re looking for and what they want - so the onus is on the founder to communicate why his or her tech startup is special: 1. Share the Partner Feel With Equity.

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Developer Equity Ruby Cofounder 130

VC Cafe

SEPTEMBER 6, 2011

But here it’s not enough to relay on secondary research – get out there and speak to potential customers, partners and even competitors – gather evidence and interest. A startup is a lot of work, and one person will have a hard time executing on all the different tasks ahead.

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ReadWriteStart

JULY 14, 2011

Paul Palmieri, Co-Founder and CEO of mobile advertising service Millennial Media just gave a really valuable talk at the International Startup Festival in Montreal titled "Investing in Your Influencers." These are people with whom you can share some type of value, but not tangible value like stock options or payment.

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Advisory Board Balance Sheet Silicon Valley Cofounder 135

Cracking the Code

OCTOBER 12, 2012

The first amendment relies on the definition of « founder » and imposes a minimal ownership of 10% of the company and a holding period of two to five years to benefit from a lower tax rate. The second amendment proposes to apply tax rebates on capital gains applicable over a six years period for those who cannot meet the founder status.

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Jeff Hilimire

APRIL 10, 2015

Earlier this week, I hit on the topic of co-founders / business partners , and advisory boards / mentors. they like you), and they’re often incented via stock options or pay (but not always). Today I wanted to address a new concept that I recently tried out: The Pop-Up Advisory Board.

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venturehacks.com

OCTOBER 21, 2010

Do you mean the shares go to the founders? But if you do another round of financing first, those unallocated shares will go into a new option pool. Reply # Hooshyar Naraghi · Apr 15, 2007 The option pool raised a question for me, if you could kindly comment. You are already compensated through your founder’s shares.

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techcrunch.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

One of the things I do as a founder of a later stage startup is to meet with early stage entrepreneurs to help them get their companies going. In Meebo’s case, for example, I was lucky enough to partner up with Elaine and Sandy. No looking for partnerships (who’s going to partner with you anyway?). and Google. No phone system.

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Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Software Review 84

Agile VC

JUNE 5, 2011

Even for those who don’t care to dive into the numbers, it’s worth a quick glance because co-founder/CEO Andrew Mason wrote a letter which forms the preamble of the full document. I co-founded NextView Ventures , a seed-stage VC firm based in Boston, in 2010. Filed under Uncategorized. Pingback: Iphone Android App.

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The Next Web

AUGUST 14, 2013

This is a guest post by Wade Foster , co-founder and CEO of Zapier, which originally appeared on his blog. But since I’m relatively fresh off of the experience I get asked by first-time founders how they should go about raising money for their startup. Usually those aren’t first-time founders though. It certainly did me.

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