Steve Blank

APRIL 10, 2019

Investors bet that by offering prospective hires a stake in the company’s future growth- with a visible time horizon of a payoff – employees would act more like owners and work harder– and that would align employee interests with the investor interests. That made sense.

Stock Options 335

Stock Options Stock Vesting Common Stock 335

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 13, 2011

years, and had reached an average revenue level of $60 million with the range being from $5 million to $350 million. They end up trying to do too much for too many, which dilutes their focus and often the quality of their product or service. Hiring smart. The problem is that too many entrepreneurs never learn to say ‘NO!’

Indianapolis 219

Indianapolis Minneapolis Kentucky Virginia 219

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2011

But the reality is that you’re faced with two problems: 1) the earlier the stage the riskier and thus more write-offs so you need to have enough ownership percentage in your winners to make up for the losers and 2) the earlier stage your check the more likely the company will need many more funding rounds behind you and thus you face dilution.

Pre-Money Valuation 336

Pre-Money Valuation Valuation Silicon Valley Stock 336

David Teten

AUGUST 19, 2019

So you’re interested in raising capital from a Revenue-Based Investor VC. A new wave of Revenue-Based Investors (“RBI”) are emerging. For background, see Revenue-Based Investing: A New Option for Founders who Care About Control. Rational burn profile, up to 50% of revenue at close, scaling down. Bigfoot Capital.

Revenue 60

Revenue Technical Review Software Review Equity 60

David Teten

JANUARY 21, 2021

This essay is part of a series on alternative VC: I: Revenue-Based Investing: a new option for founders who care about control. II: Who are the major Revenue-Based Investing VCs? III: Why are Revenue-Based VCs investing in so many women and underrepresented founders? IV: Should your new VC fund use Revenue-Based Investing?

Equity 78

Equity Revenue Cofounder Colorado 78

VC Cafe

JUNE 10, 2022

As a result, founders are accepting increased dilution of the stakes they hold in their own companies. While these prices are still high compared to what we see in Israel, Investors have putting a stronger focus on revenue growth (and in particular startups that can reach substantial revenue targets) especially before series A.

Valuation 151

Valuation Marketing Israel Venture Capital 151

Business Plan Blog

OCTOBER 4, 2013

Don’t hire people with skills and qualifications similar to yours. Hire based on functionality and avoid having too many C’s. This helps to better divide the work, make people accountable, and show investors just why each founder/hire is key to the organization. Hiring the right people at the right time is key.

Part-Time VPE 79

Part-Time VPE Fractional VPE Cofounder CTO Hire 79

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 7, 2016

From Aspiration to Hero For companies that do have that moment of success where everything seems to come together: funding, hiring, customers, PR, product releases and so forth — you have a “hero” moment where you feel invincible. Or some teams who start driving revenue paper over the fact that they aren’t acquiring customers profitably.

Churn Rate 150

Churn Rate Vesting Dilution Europe 150

The Startup Magazine

AUGUST 9, 2022

The SoStereo firm that Salo helped build not only streamlines the way Fortune 500 Brands use music on their ads, but also helps indie artists build a musical middle class and earn extra revenues. One of the most underrated jobs of a leader in a scaling organization is making sure the culture doesn’t get diluted. Quality control?

Cofounder 158

Cofounder Founder Miami Marketing 158

K9 Ventures

JUNE 12, 2012

Founders typically get their equity in a company once — at the time of founding and then get diluted with each subsequent round of financing. The rush to hire results in a relaxation of “hire only A players rule.” This situation is not always in the best interest of founders.

Venture Capital 117

Venture Capital Silicon Valley Founder Seed Stage 117

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. x $125k which is equal to $31.25k.

Equity 64

Equity Employee CTO Hire Fractional CTO 64

View from Seed

APRIL 30, 2015

In many instances, you raise an institutional round to either fulfill a product strategy or go-to-market strategy or you’re increasing sales and marketing hires, so you have better visibility into what needs to happen in the next six, 12, 18 months. Traction and revenue? NVV: Is there any dilution? Business model?

Term Sheet 120

Term Sheet Equity Startup Seed Stage 120

betashop.com

OCTOBER 8, 2012

From the start we said that we would never make a decision as to what features to build or what products to sell based on revenue alone, rather we would focus on things that make our customers smile and by doing so lots and lots of revenue will fall out over time. The most important hiring criteria for your executives is cultural fit.

Technical Review 108

Technical Review Technology Software Review Valuation 108

Up and Running

JULY 1, 2020

I needed to determine whether we could profitably hire an additional advisor to properly manage this emerging marker to allow the current advisor more time to manage their own. The investment expenses precede the revenues they will ultimately produce and may lead to cash or profitability constraints.

Business Plan 152

Business Plan Forecast Operations Dilution 152

K9 Ventures

JUNE 12, 2012

Founders typically get their equity in a company once — at the time of founding and then get diluted with each subsequent round of financing. The rush to hire results in a relaxation of “hire only A players rule.” This situation is not always in the best interest of founders.

Venture Capital 105

Venture Capital Silicon Valley Founder Seed Stage 105

YoungUpstarts

MAY 6, 2019

How much revenue are you generating on an annual basis? 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. So, hire more people or go for outsourcing to remote workers. Is there an exit strategy?

Startup 113

Startup Technical Cofounder Merger Early Stage 113

Hearpreneur

JANUARY 30, 2022

Thanks to Adam Wood, Revenue Geeks ! #7- 15- Study supply chains and hiring trends. Businesses, in order to function, will have to study supply chains as well as hiring trends to determine pricing, promotions and service offerings, adjusting to current conditions. 7- Start outsourcing. Photo Credit: Jim Pendergast.

Entrepreneur 127

Entrepreneur Green Technical Review Social Media 127

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. " Actually this process works really well in a financial company.

Continuous Deployment 167

Continuous Deployment Software Review San Francisco Lean 167

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 17, 2017

If you hire 6 senior sales reps in January at $120,000 / year salary then you’ve taken on an extra $60,000 per month in costs yet these sales people might not close new business 6 months. If you don’t have a strong balance sheet and can’t hire more people that’s fine — but understand this may lead to slower growth.

Stock Options 227

Stock Options Startup Dilution Venture Capital 227

YoungUpstarts

MAY 31, 2016

Hire smart, ambitious, get-it-done employees and lead them with emotionally intelligent innovation leadership skills. The single biggest reason that the average company struggles or even fails is due to their lack of focus and dilution of their greatest resource, which are people. Is a marketing plan important? Is high yield important?

Technical Review 100

Technical Review Leadership Early Stage Initial Public Offering 100

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 16, 2016

But entrepreneurs face other concerns that compete with this growth focus, including hiring, maintaining current revenue sources and distinguishing themselves from the competition. But take it from what a good friend and advisor once said to me: “Ego is dilutive to net worth.”. Don’t expand for the sake of your ego.

Cofounder 100

Cofounder Balance Sheet Small Business Administration Technical Review 100

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2013

Sure, our revenue is growing, but is that enough to raise an internal round? Dilution / valuation. I hate when companies publish too much information about the total stock option allocations, the company valuations, the dilution faced in every round, etc. I wasn’t expecting this much dilution this quickly.”

Startup 417

Startup Dilution San Diego Stock Options 417

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. What is the right revenue model?

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

This is going to be BIG.

JANUARY 18, 2024

They might not understand how a pre-revenue startup could be worth anything, let alone be valued at $5mm. I would e-mail Paul and Rony from Indeed regularly with feature ideas and get super frustrated that they implemented zero of them—especially in the face of stiff competition from Simply Hired. What’s Simply Hired, you ask?

.Net 88

.Net Cap Table Startup Technical Review 88

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 16, 2021

According to the Voice of Microenterprise (AEO) website, if one in three micro-enterprises in the United States hired an additional employee, the US would soon be at full employment. This allowed him to learn enough from all his early mistakes to hit it big ($10 million revenue) with a global beauty tools company called Tweezerman.

Entrepreneur 304

Entrepreneur United States Dilution .Net 304

Berkonomics

SEPTEMBER 13, 2010

Second, the audit committee is responsible for hiring an outside auditor as appropriate, reviewing the accounting practices of the corporation and making sure that laws are followed relating to recognition of revenues and expenses. Email readers continue here.]

Covenant 59

Covenant Software Review Stock Options Vesting 59

Duct Tape Marketing

APRIL 7, 2022

So a lot of agencies track revenue, some actually even track profit, but you, if we're gonna optimize, um, profitability, what, what should we be measuring? 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. Marcel Petitpas (01:46): I like it.

Cofounder 94

Cofounder Hosting Networking Software Review 94

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 25, 2011

A great recent example of this was a successful group of entrepreneurs who had created a company that will do $10-12 million in revenue at their system integration business (read: services business) in 2011 after having done $5 million or so in 2010 and $2-3 million in 2009. But it might not. Why Build a Services Business in the First Place?

Silicon Valley 332

Silicon Valley IP Dividend Finance 332

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 26, 2013

According to the Voice of Microenterprise (AEO) website, if one in three micro-enterprises in the United States hired an additional employee, the US would soon be at full employment. This allowed him to learn enough from all his early mistakes to hit it big ($10 million revenue) with a global beauty tools company called Tweezerman.

United States 246

United States Dilution Startup .Net 246

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 12, 2018

According to the Voice of Microenterprise (AEO) website, if one in three micro-enterprises in the United States hired an additional employee, the US would soon be at full employment. This allowed him to learn enough from all his early mistakes to hit it big ($10 million revenue) with a global beauty tools company called Tweezerman.

United States 244

United States Dilution .Net Small Business 244

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 9, 2016

According to the Voice of Microenterprise (AEO) website, if one in three micro-enterprises in the United States hired an additional employee, the US would soon be at full employment. This allowed him to learn enough from all his early mistakes to hit it big ($10 million revenue) with a global beauty tools company called Tweezerman.

United States 242

United States Dilution .Net Small Business 242

Austin Startup

MAY 8, 2018

Background reading: Founder Compensation: Cash, Equity, Liquidity Fatal Errors in Early Startup Hiring Early Hires: Options or Stock Given how deeply involved we are with early-stage startups hiring their first key employees, I figured it would be helpful to outline a few key principles to help entrepreneurs navigate the topic.

Employee 48

Employee Startup Seed Stage Equity 48

Berkonomics

APRIL 4, 2024

Email readers, continue here…] Second, the audit committee is responsible for hiring an outside auditor as appropriate, reviewing the accounting practices of the corporation and making sure that laws are followed relating to recognition of revenues and expenses.

Covenant 48

Covenant Software Review Stock Options Vesting 48

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 23, 2019

Plus, any other non-standard items here should be called out, too, like non-dilutive grants, as applicable. The former can include expected burn and runway, guideposts on hiring, and resource allocation. develop and launch X product, reach Y number of users, generate $Z amount revenue).

Cap Table 211

Cap Table Seed Stage Valuation Dilution 211

Mike Michalowicz

JANUARY 16, 2023

If you’re like me, you may be inundated with emails and ads for TED talks, keynote speeches and small business books from thought leaders offering to help your small business increase revenue. It increases your small business revenue by leaps and bounds too.). Thought sharing is serving. And I think we all want to do that.

Small Business 60

Small Business Audience Revenue Dilution 60

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 12, 2010

So I guess with the high volume of businesses that they had to track and the large fees they were earning from their fund sizes having exploded they were able to hire tons of 22 year olds to pound the phone for 2 years before going on to another job. Classic boiler room stuff. I will never have anybody do outbound prospect dialing for me.

Programming 294

Programming Entrepreneur Private Equity Equity 294

Duct Tape Marketing

OCTOBER 11, 2023

But what the dilution, if you bring it down to it that even creator entertainers and educators have in common is it's this human element. Christie Horsman (05:43): Yeah, I think the only pitfalls I see when looking for, I think hiring creator influencers to represent your brand is great. Is there a better way?

B2B 92

B2B Marketing B2C Community 92