Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2013

Good press and industry mojo wasn’t enough to overcome the financial metrics of the business and the offers came in at more like $10 million. So the tech team departed en masse to find the next great stock option scheme to make their big bucks. It was not. I wasn’t surprised. We decided not to sell.

Startup 417

Startup Dilution San Diego Stock Options 417

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 9, 2013

Deal with company admin: 409a valuations, approve stock options, vote on key measures (15%). should we ramp up sales hires now or wait for more traction? should we hire the head of a business unit who has turned out to be a bad seed? Provide information / context (15%). Ineffecient Board Meeting.

Advisory Board 337

Advisory Board Valuation Stock Options Seed Money 337

Genuine VC

SEPTEMBER 5, 2012

Other than starting to build, hire, and take over the world, there are a bunch of mundane things to do right away. Proactively solicit input to create a board deck template and metrics dashboard to present at the first Board Meeting, so that you’re able to set a strong in-control tone. You’ve just closed your seed round.

Founder 156

Founder Cap Table Stock Options PR 156

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 8, 2009

Sarbanes Oxley has made it impossible to go public reducing financial capital for start-ups and the FASB rules on stock options have made it harder to attract human capital to start-ups. Why vanity metrics are dangerous ► November (1) ► October (7) ▼ September (9) Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders (and a request for.

DC 90

DC Washington San Francisco SBIR 90

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.

Valuation 98

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Merger Vesting 98

Austin Startup

SEPTEMBER 19, 2017

A strong advisor can walk you in the door to the same number of companies as 2–3 new sales hires. As for compensation, stock options in the range of 0.1% Never discount the power of a warm intro. The strength of their network is something you’ll want to confirm ahead of signing them on.

Advisory Board 48

Advisory Board Sweat Equity Marketing Vertical 48

Hunter Walker

MAY 1, 2016

I spend a lot of time creating plans and then finding concise ways to share them with the teams, get their buy-in, and then hold them accountable to the metrics we’ve identified. As a hiring manager, what do you look for in new grads? AJ: Startups hire just in time. Everyone is accountable for the success of the entire business.

New York City 48

New York City New York Los Angeles Startup 48

Hunter Walker

MAY 1, 2016

I spend a lot of time creating plans and then finding concise ways to share them with the teams, get their buy-in, and then hold them accountable to the metrics we’ve identified. As a hiring manager, what do you look for in new grads? AJ: Startups hire just in time. Everyone is accountable for the success of the entire business.

New York City 48

New York City New York Los Angeles Startup 48

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MARCH 11, 2014

So hiring more people and being around more people and getting more things done is not actually one of the reasons. What I mean by that is startups nowadays that raise money have absolutely ludicrous metrics. And again, that doesn’t have the metrics that a VC wants. Lots of things change. Does that make sense?

Technical Cofounder 220

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Software Review Management 220

Cracking the Code

JUNE 24, 2021

But the Valley in 1999 was a new world of startups, venture capital, and stock options. We used different playbooks to scale, either hiring someone local, sending someone from HQ to set up a country, or acqui-hiring. We’ve been tracking employee morale, before and during the crisis, using NPS as a key company metric.

Global 62

Global Europe France Cofounder 62

Seeing Both Sides

JANUARY 13, 2015

Always testing and trying to run fast tests to put up some strong metrics before running out of money (did I mention we''re running out of money?). The first version of the go to market team is hired (i.e., Also, that first VP you hired was great from 0-1 and good from 1-10, but you''re afraid she can''t scale to the next level.

Mezzanine 20

Mezzanine IPO Finance Business Model 20

Ben's Blog

APRIL 28, 2010

Looking across these nearly 50 companies, the study finds that founding CEOs consistently beat the professional CEOs on a broad range of metrics ranging from capital efficiency (amount of funding raised), time to exit, exit valuations, and return on investment. If you do, hire him! In the best case, you may find the next John Morgidge.

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Software Review 78

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2018

Your historical trading information including financials and a “customer file” which shows the history of your transactions so that investors can run “cohort” analyses Customer reference, personal references, key team members, compensation, cap table, stock option plan, etc.

Cap Table 336

Cap Table Due Diligence Forecast Churn Rate 336

Reid Hoffman

DECEMBER 10, 2020

it took years for Airbnb’s metrics to really start accelerating. To honor the Alliance it had made with those former employees, Airbnb waived the usual vesting cliff so that they could exercise their stock options, and provided generous severance packages. Now here’s an interesting coda to that story.

Hosting 69

Hosting Hockey Stick IPO Silicon Valley 69