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I was asked by a reader how much equity he should give out to early employees and to service providers in a very early stage startup. Founders vs. Early Employees To help with this discussion, let me start with a definition of "early employee." I'll get to service providers in a later post. Which means n = (i - 1)/i.
We should end the year with a few million in fully recurring revenue and we’re projected to double next year. But more spend = more viral opps = more revenue down the road. >50% of our revenue in now viral. I took money with a 3x participating preferredliquidationpreference with 8% compounded interest annually.
How They Make Money: Majority of Kayak’s revenue actually comes from advertising on their site (55%), not lead generation or referral fees to travel suppliers as you might think (more on this below). Financial Snapshot: 2010 Revenue: $170 million. Revenue growth: 51% YoY (2010), 1% YoY (2009), 131% YoY (2008).
For the first few years, your VCs want you to keep your head down, build the product, find product/market fit and ship to get to some inflection point (revenue, users, etc.). For example, in your industry do companies build value the old fashion way by generating revenue? If so, how is the revenue measured? FDA approvals?
As a quick review, most startups begin life as corporations with a single class of equity securities, referred to as Common Stock , issued to founders, employees, and outside service providers. Options and warrants, when issued, are also typically exercisable for shares of Common Stock.
At an accelerator … Me: Raising convertible notes as a seed round is one of the biggest disservices our industry has done to entrepreneurs since 2001-2003 when there were “full ratchets” and “multiple liquidationpreferences” – the most hostile terms anybody found in term sheets 10 years ago.
BTW, this ignores liquidationpreferences which actually mean you’ll earn less. So when the Stanford MBA, the ex senior technology developer or the former Chief Revenue Officer of a company is calling me and asking my advice on their next gig you can see why I start with “are you ready to earn or to learn?&#.
3] However, if they are built bottom up, they demonstrate and make explicit a range of business model assumptions the entrepreneur is using to think about his business and its revenue model. Second a liquidationpreference and a participation. This is why a bottom up approach is more credible. First , dividends.
The don’t understand VC liquidationpreferences or multiple return expectations. An employee walks up to me and says, “Mark, I’m thinking about buying a house. Sure, our revenue is growing, but is that enough to raise an internal round? You take the meeting but you’re not really pursuing it.
As a result, a “late-stage” financing is no longer reserved for high-revenue, pre-profitability companies getting ready for an IPO; it is simply any large round of financing done at a high price. You must subtract it from your top-line revenue. You should not pay a net revenue multiple for a gross revenue disclosure.
In my own portfolio I have companies that are generally perceived to be extremely successful with high profile customers and lots of sales…but they just happen to have a liquidationpreference ladder of $25 million!
Me: Raising convertible notes as a seed round is one of the biggest disservices our industry has done to entrepreneurs since 2001-2003 when there were “full ratchets” and “multiple liquidationpreferences” – the most hostile terms anybody found in term sheets 10 years ago. Revenue multiple? How will you price the next round?
All Unicorn participants — founders, company employees, venture investors and their limited partners (LPs) — are seeing their fortunes put at risk from the very nature of the Unicorn phenomenon itself. A high performing, high-growth SAAS company that may have been worth 10 or more times revenue was suddenly worth 4-7 times revenue.
Some will demonstrate strategically justifiable metrics and have fantastic ‘up round’ exits; others may see liquidationpreferences kick in which will negatively impact founders and employees; others may fulfill the adage “IPO is the new down round” , which has been the case for more than half of the public companies on our list.
In “VC world” Rule 409A is best known for providing a safe harbor for private company valuations, and in particular the setting of strike prices for employee stock options. Let’s say a given company has raised $15mm in VC funding and is generating about $3mm in revenue and starting to ramp up quickly.
What this means, is that he gets paid not as a portion of the profit, but as a portion of the overall revenue, regardless of the profit. That’s because preferred shares operate under a completely separate set of rules (which will be defined in the investment documents) than your shares. Liquidationpreference.
Social networking finally came of age connected the planet and leading to enormous wealth creation for Facebook employees and investors. Smart phones finally took off leading to enormous wealth creation for Apple employees and investors but also helped propel Google, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, WhatsApp and others.
Community is more powerful than money or technology » August 11, 2007 How much equity for investors and employees? How much equity should I grant to early employees? Founders usually end up with 10% to 20%, all the other employees end up with about 15%, and the VCs end up with about 60% to 75%. 5% Managers -.25%
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