venturehacks.com

FEBRUARY 24, 2010

Breakups are hard If you’re going to fall out with your co-founder, do it early, recover the equity into the option pool to keep the company going, and recruit someone else great to fill the missing slot. Geeks can always be hired. Build in founder vesting (a.k.a. Learn more. Our Bookstore See our recommendations.

Cofounder 101

Cofounder Founder Technical Cofounder Technical Review 101

venturehacks.com

OCTOBER 21, 2010

SUPPORTED BY Products Archives @venturehacks Books AngelList About RSS The Option Pool Shuffle by Nivi on April 10th, 2007 “Follow the money card!&# – The Inside Man, Three-Card Shuffle Summary: Don’t let your investors determine the size of the option pool for you. Don’t lose this game. share to $1.00/share:

Option Pool 68

Option Pool Pre-Money Valuation Dilution Warrant 68

Rob Go

JUNE 17, 2014

In my last post about raising seed vs. jumping straight to A, I received a good comment from Chris Woods that my analysis neglected to include the impact of option pools that are created at each financing round. Essentially, the new investor wants there to be a certain % of options available to employees after they invest.

Option Pool 65

Option Pool Dilution .Net Term Sheet 65

www.paulgraham.com

APRIL 28, 2010

For example, a seed firmshould be able to give advice about how to approach VCs, which VCsobviously dont need to do; whereas VCs should be able to giveadvice about how to hire an "executive team," which is not an issuein the seed stage. You dont have to spend time on bureaucraticstuff, because you havent hired any bureaucrats yet.

Technical Review 76

Technical Review Startup Software Review Angel Investor 76

Hunter Walker

MAY 7, 2014

Whether it’s adding capacity to an existing function (#MawrEngineers) or bringing new talents onboard (“we intend to make our first marketing hire”), glossing over these bullet points towards the back of the pitch deck would be a mistake. I’m interested in not just what these people will be doing but how and when they’ll be hired.

Hiring 124

Hiring Option Pool Early Stage Term Sheet 124

www.paulgraham.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

In a traditional series A round, before the VCs invest theymake the company set aside a block of stock for future hires—usuallybetween 10 and 30% of the company. Even the cheap kinds of startups will generally raise large amountsat some point, when they want to hire a lot of people. Theyrean administrative convenience.

Startup 93

Startup Valuation Non-Compete Deal Flow 93

thinkspace.com

SEPTEMBER 7, 2012

Chris Dixon wrote a blog post about “ The one number you should know about your equity grant “ The one number you should know about your equity grant is the percent of the company you are being granted (in options, shares, whatever – it doesn’t matter – just the % matters). Percent of the outstanding option pool: meaningless.

Equity 62

Equity Employee Founder CTO Hire 62

venturehacks.com

MARCH 21, 2008

Advisor compensation Whether you’re hiring a normal advisor or super advisor: Advisory shares are usually issued as common stock options. The options typically vest monthly over 1-2 years with 100% single-trigger acceleration and no cliff. Many advisors want options they can exercise immediately —that’s fine.

Advisory Board 44

Advisory Board Cap Table Vesting Equity 44

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 Create an options pool, if nothing more than in your mind, so you have some parameters to work within," Durkin says.

Fractional CTO 40

Fractional CTO Equity Iowa Technical Cofounder 40

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2015

How much is in the option pool? 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. Option pool (likely dilution in the future, which is a function of a higher price just not yet defined).

Pre-Money Valuation 150

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

Hunter Walker

AUGUST 7, 2017

But employee option pool is important enough that I wanted to briefly expand upon my comment above. While you should expect these sorts of hires to take below market cash comp versus what Google is paying them, this tradeoff needs to be replaced with equity upside.

Equity 108

Equity Pre-Money Valuation Option Pool Founder 108

Austin Startup

JANUARY 25, 2020

This was my time at a Wall Street firm that had hired me after I applied for their Junior Stockbroker position, a little while after I graduated from college. But before we got back to work, we had to hire a lawyer to help out with both the SAFE docs and to file our FORM D with the SEC so we can register our raise.

Delaware 62

Delaware SEC New York City New York 62

David Teten

DECEMBER 3, 2019

ff Venture Capital hired two full-time engineers to build out Totem. The Long Term Stock Exchange is building out a set of tools for founders for managing their cap tables, 409A valuations, cash on hand, options pool, investor relations, etc. Fincura specializes in serving lenders.

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Software Review Analytics Private Equity 78

Up and Running

SEPTEMBER 20, 2021

For instance, the cap table will help you with various possibilities while running business activities like available options and pre-money valuations faster. This can be helpful when you are hiring a COO for the company, and the candidate asks to get percentage ownership in the company. Example of a cap table.

Cap Table 112

Cap Table Pre-Money Valuation Stock Options Option Pool 112

Genuine VC

FEBRUARY 28, 2011

At a board level, VCs and other members don’t like to see someone recently hired already receiving new options or a salary raise after a short period of time. The board’s bias will be to spend those resources on hiring new talent or to retain those who have worked at the company longer and harder. Early-Stage.

Startup 121

Startup Equity Vesting Salary 121

VC Cafe

OCTOBER 16, 2010

How do bootstrapped companies hire talent? Instead of a 20% option pool, we created a 40% option pool, and gave out half of it to the first half-dozen hires who came on and were willing to work without salary for a period of time, forming the core team.

Option Pool 88

Option Pool Analytics LLC Startup 88

www.instigatorblog.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

I gave him similar numbers to what I had been given when I was hiring the first few employees for Standout Jobs. This is especially true when you think of a tech startup, where the first few hires are typically engineers/programmers. Most if not all new hires will be 'needs driven' Not nec financial needs but psych needs.

Equity 41

Equity Employee Startup Vesting 41

techcrunch.com

FEBRUARY 25, 2010

You could make the same argument about acquisitions and option pools. Why aren’t we surprised when three months later that company can’t hire enough engineers? The 3-person executive team, including a CEO if one was hired, owns 10%, and splits $3.6 The remaining $36 million is divided according to equity ownership.

Liquidation Preference 63

Liquidation Preference Founder Option Pool Acquisition 63

Berkonomics

SEPTEMBER 28, 2017

Options are usually best with “C” corporations, but granting options for either LLC’s or “S” corporations are not a real problem. An option plan should carve out an addition of about 15% of the “fully diluted” shares. Inducing a new CEO to come aboard usually means creation of a stock option package of 5-8%.

Early Stage 102

Early Stage Equity Stock Options Vesting 102

Seeing Both Sides

JULY 15, 2009

Another term that impacts the price is the size of the option pool. Most VCs invest in companies that need to hire additional management team members and sales and marketing and technical talent to build the business. We put forward a “6 on 7” deal with a 20% option pool. I was competing with another firm.

Pre-Money Valuation 49

Pre-Money Valuation Option Pool Stock Options Post-Money Valuation 49

Early Growth Financial Services

JUNE 26, 2014

Valuation — Know what these terms mean: Fully-diluted — This includes all issued stock and anything that could be converted into common stock (typically after an acquisition or IPO), such as your stock option pool. Pre-money valuation — The value of the company prior to investment, calculated on a fully-diluted basis.

Pre-Money Valuation 51

Pre-Money Valuation Option Pool Dilution Common Stock 51

ithacaVC

DECEMBER 13, 2013

They are typically pretty simple: (i) shares owned by founders and (ii) shares authorized for issuance in a stock option pool, some of which may be issued to employees already and some of which will be available for future issuance. And don’t forget that the options granted would come out of the available option pool.

Cap Table 67

Cap Table Pre-Money Valuation Option Pool Liquidation Preference 67

Berkonomics

MAY 12, 2010

An option plan should carve out an addition of about 15% of the “fully diluted” shares. If there are 85,000 shares issued to the founders, then a plan calling for 15,000 shares in a pool reserved for future hires is appropriate, making the fully diluted shares 100,000. Director level employees are typically granted ½%.

Early Stage 85

Early Stage Equity Stock Options Vesting 85

Berkonomics

NOVEMBER 23, 2023

Options are usually best with “C” corporations but granting options for either LLC’s or “S” corporations are not a real problem. An option plan should carve out an addition of about 15% of the “fully diluted” shares. Inducing a new CEO to come aboard usually means creation of a stock option package of 5-8%.

Equity 62

Equity Stock Options Vesting Early Stage 62

Scott Edward Walker

NOVEMBER 26, 2017

The way the investor thinks about it is that, if you can’t figure out your way to network your way to [an investor],… then you’re unlikely to be able to network your way into hiring a great team, or network your way into selling your product to customers. (at www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEOR0AJsziE. v=NEOR0AJsziE.

Term Sheet 63

Term Sheet San Francisco Founder Investment Bankers 63

This is going to be BIG.

AUGUST 21, 2023

Here’s the option pool that I think fairly incentivizes you. If a VC thought that you were the right founder and this was the right company, they’d deliver you a term sheet after looking at your current one with something that translates into the end result they’re looking for. Sure it squishes down everyone else.

Cap Table 78

Cap Table Term Sheet Database Option Pool 78

venturehacks.com

DECEMBER 9, 2012

This is the advisor paradox : hire advisors for good advice but don’t follow it, apply it. Your task is to hire the maverick advisors in the crowd. Hiring advisors is an ongoing effort. Then hire him if you like the results. The Option Pool Shuffle. ” – Jeffrey Pfeffer , The Human Equation.

Advisory Board 50

Advisory Board Cap Table RSS Cofounder 50

www.mattbartus.com

DECEMBER 9, 2012

You have a 20% option pool, so you know this will take your ownership down from 80% to 60%, and the VC will get 25%. Option Pool. Option Pool. What questions should I ask the lawyers I am considering hiring? Take a look at the numbers: Pre-Money. Post-Money. Series A. -. Post-Money. Series A. -.

Warrant 40

Warrant Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Term Sheet 40

venturehacks.com

SEPTEMBER 22, 2011

In practice, you raise money or hire an employee because you need to, not because you want to. Say the equity equation tells you to pay a prospective hire above market. You should still pay the hire a market rate and save the company some equity. Say the equity equation tells you to pay a prospective hire below market.

Equity 40

Equity Cap Table Valuation RSS 40

VC Adventure

NOVEMBER 1, 2018

One of the key functions of a board is to hire and fire the CEO. There are, of course, some items that the board has specific decision making authority over (buying another company, increasing the option pool, signing leases of a certain size, etc.). Most decisions are delegated to the CEO and management team.

Design 252

Design Option Pool Operations Conversion 252

www.payne.org

SEPTEMBER 22, 2011

5 Stock vs Options. The re-heating of the venture funded tech market has pushed a heat up of the hiring market, and Im getting more calls from friends asking for help understanding startup stock (equity) offers. Companies allocate a pool of stock (usually called the Incentive Stock Option pool, or ISO pool) to grant to employees.

Equity 56

Equity Employee Vesting Preferred Stock 56

thestartuplawyer.com

FEBRUARY 24, 2010

Who must be a co founder and who can remain a hired principal? When I find, and hire on options, the three perfect CEs/directors must I consider them co founders and treat them accordingly? Who must be a co founder and who can remain a hired principal? He obviously never launched a startup and got shafted by a co-founder.

Cofounder 40

Cofounder Founder Preferred Stock Startup 40

www.startupnorth.ca

OCTOBER 23, 2010

Being an early hire at a startup gives an individual the ability to make tremendous impact on an organization as it grows – and both the founders and those hires should know it.” This should force companies to think about building value with each early hire, and not just filling a position. It’s just unfeasible.

Employee 41

Employee Founder Salary Equity 41