Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 29, 2015

Thus, options don’t “pay the mortgage” today, so to speak. Unless you have a sizable nest egg, or a working spouse with an income to support you, I would recommend that you consider any stock options as a “potential bonus,” rather than a key part of your compensation for joining a startup. 7% Product Manager,2 -.3%

Stock Options 120

Stock Options Stock Advisory Board Startup 120

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 2, 2022

Great team members may take more time to find, and cost you stock options, but a qualified and highly motivated team that stretches your budget is a good calculated risk. Recruit the best team members and provide incentives. Trying to save money by recruiting family members, or hiring only interns, is a bad risk.

Forecast 304

Forecast Stock Options Technical Review Metrics 304

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 22, 2020

Calculate employee stock option values and vesting times, as well as salary. Since nine out of ten startups fail completely, serious investors look for a 10X return on their investment within five years. Look for examples of similar companies and revenue multiples achieved from acquirers.

Technical Review 436

Technical Review Due Diligence Sweat Equity Burn Rate 436

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 4, 2022

The rest can come from early hires (with stock options to assure commitment), equity investors, or even strategic partners. I’m not suggesting that you need all six of these as cofounders initially, but I always recommend a minimum of two founders with different perspectives.

Technical Cofounder 309

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Advisory Board Startup 309

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 18, 2023

Calculate employee stock option values and vesting times, as well as salary. Since nine out of ten startups fail completely, serious investors look for a 10X return on their investment within five years. Look for examples of similar companies and revenue multiples achieved from acquirers.

Sweat Equity 207

Sweat Equity Burn Rate Technical Review Intellectual Property 207

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 8, 2022

An even better alternative could be stock options, linked to the long-term success of the company. Typical incentives give percentages of quarterly revenues and contribution as rewards for success. You need different rewards for a team running an innovation project, such as reaching agreed milestones.

Stock Options 277

Stock Options Incubator Framework Stock 277

abovethecrowd.com

FEBRUARY 1, 2009

Prominent finance publications like the WSJ and the Motley Fool along with several bloggers have recently taken shots at Google with respect to their decision to re-price a boat-load of employee stock options.

Stock Options 40

Stock Options Stock Finance Technical Review 40

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 1, 2022

Thus, options don’t “pay the mortgage” today, so to speak. Unless you have a sizable nest egg, or a working spouse with an income to support you, I would recommend that you consider any stock options as a “potential bonus,” rather than a key part of your compensation for joining a startup. 7% Product Manager,2 -.3%

Stock Options 343

Stock Options Advisory Board Stock Startup 343

Feld Thoughts

JANUARY 17, 2013

I’ve never really understood why the majority of stock option refresh grants are stacked grants mid-way through the granting process. Assume you hire someone and grant them 10,000 options with monthly vesting of four years with a one year cliff. One thing, however, has always baffled me. Let me give an example.

Stock Options 134

Stock Options Stock Vesting Retention 134

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 8, 2020

Great team members may take more time to find, and cost you stock options, but a qualified and highly motivated team that stretches your budget is a good calculated risk. Recruit the best team members and provide incentives. Trying to save money by recruiting family members, or hiring only interns, is a bad risk.

Management 322

Management Entrepreneur Forecast Stock Options 322

SoCal CTO

NOVEMBER 14, 2012

To find the equity numbers that were relevant for the particular person here, I went back through my prior post and looked at Wilson Sonsini and DFJ Gotham Ventures The Option Pool Shuffle Employee Equity How Much How much equity for investors and employees? Quick & Dirty How-To: Employee Stock Option Allocations

CTO Hire 329

CTO Hire Equity Seed Stage Option Pool 329

Gust

OCTOBER 16, 2024

Offering stock options is one way to align your team’s long-term incentives with your company’s growth, but when is the right time to introduce a stock option plan? Here’s when an option plan can help appeared first on Gust. The post Scaling up?

Stock Options 91

Stock Options Stock Startup 91

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 9, 2020

The rest can come from early hires (with stock options to assure commitment), equity investors, or even strategic partners. I’m not suggesting that you need all six of these as cofounders initially, but I always recommend a minimum of two founders with different perspectives.

Technical Cofounder 308

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Advisory Board Stock Options 308

The Startup Lawyer

JANUARY 2, 2014

Stock Options' Luckily for startups, advisors are prevalent and can be readily found through incubators, networking and/or personal contacts. The best advisors are in it to pay it forward or give back to the startup community. If you want to take a very informal advisor relationship […].

Stock Options 54

Stock Options Stock Incubator Community 54

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 9, 2014

Founders stock, and stock options, will be worth nothing for the first several years, if not forever. Who gets stock options, and how many? Running or working for a startup is more of a lifestyle than a career choice. Be prepared for chaos, long hours, and small paychecks in the short-term.

Technical Review 250

Technical Review Stock Options Due Diligence Silicon Valley 250

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 14, 2017

Executives run the day-to-day so often the board is more involved as a sparring partner at key intervals. The administrative work we actually do at board meetings?

Cofounder 217

Cofounder Stock Options Equity Technical Review 217

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 27, 2019

The law firm has done its job of preparing the stock option requests, board meeting minutes, 409a valuations. If you start with admin (409a valuations, small stock option allocations, board minutes) and you then chew up 20 minutes with this?—?it’s We travel by airplane to sit around considering 0.02% stock grants?

Stock Options 226

Stock Options Metrics Stock Valuation 226

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 6, 2019

An even better alternative could be stock options, linked to the long-term success of the company. Typical incentives give percentages of quarterly revenues and contribution as rewards for success. You need different rewards for a team running an innovation project, such as reaching agreed milestones.

Stock Options 236

Stock Options Incubator Framework Stock 236

Berkonomics

DECEMBER 6, 2010

Use stock options and warrants to pay for service only rarely. Earlier, I stated that stock options are the currency of early stage business. When assessing the relative merit of using attractive non-cash forms of compensation for outside services, first be aware of the true value of your stock.

Stock Options 61

Stock Options Stock Warrant Common Stock 61

Business Plan Blog

SEPTEMBER 18, 2012

Reserve 10-20% Of Your Company’s Outstanding Equity For A Stock Option Plan. It is critical for a start-up to consider this reality and reserve 10-20% of its outstanding equity for a stock option plan. Equity incentives are a major form of compensation for most emerging growth and technology companies.

Stock Options 61

Stock Options Stock Option Pool Dilution 61

The Next Web

JUNE 15, 2012

Any decision to hand out stock or stock options should be made within the big picture context of your company’s valuation and the total number of shares you’ll be granting. Many young tech startups reserve 15%-20% for employee stock options. Imagine if you grant stock options to a handful of consultants.

Equity 116

Equity Stock Options Vesting Stock 116

View from Seed

APRIL 27, 2020

Others are just starting out, but the financial safety net they thought they had from a spouse’s job or highly appreciated stock options has disappeared. Some are staring into the abyss and they know they are not going to get out. This is scary. It’s going to last a while, and it’s going to be incredibly hard.

Cofounder 194

Cofounder Software Review Portfolio Technical Review 194

Berkonomics

APRIL 4, 2024

Compensation’s charter is to approve stock option grants for any employee, no matter how small the grant, and all salary and benefits for at least the CEO if not the next level down, to avoid conflict of interest with the CEO.

Covenant 48

Covenant Software Review Stock Options Vesting 48

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 25, 2019

Thus, options don’t “pay the mortgage” today, so to speak. Unless you have a sizable nest egg, or a working spouse with an income to support you, I would recommend that you consider any stock options as a “potential bonus,” rather than a key part of your compensation for joining a startup. 7% Product Manager,2 -.3%

Equity 237

Equity Stock Options Advisory Board Stock 237

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 18, 2015

Founders stock, and stock options, will be worth nothing for the first several years, if not forever. Who gets stock options, and how many? Running or working for a startup is more of a lifestyle than a career choice. Be prepared for chaos, long hours, and small paychecks in the short-term.

Technical Review 120

Technical Review Entrepreneur Stock Options Due Diligence 120

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 17, 2009

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. I know that 6-12% is more than most senior executives who join start-ups get.

Founder Vesting 365

Founder Vesting Intellectual Property IP Stock Options 365

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 23, 2023

Advisory Board members are often paid in a balance of equity (stock options) and cash (“cash” is the industry term for money wired to your bank account). Advisory Board members may field weekly to monthly emails and calls from the company executive team to provide feedback on strategy and positioning and make introductions.

Government 239

Government Advisory Board Salary Sales Cycle 239

YoungUpstarts

FEBRUARY 1, 2020

That can affect your first-time audit in two main ways: with stock option expensing and 409A Valuations. Stock Option Expensing. . When you want to issue financials that are GAAP compliant, you need to expense your stock options. Even if something is not a cash transaction, you still need to cost it.

CPA 165

CPA Stock Options Valuation Stock 165

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 27, 2014

Great team members may take more time to find, and cost you stock options, but a qualified and highly motivated team that stretches your budget is a good calculated risk. Recruit the best team members and provide incentives. Trying to save money by recruiting family members, or hiring only interns, is a bad risk.

Startup 283

Startup Forecast Stock Options Technical Review 283

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 17, 2018

Great team members may take more time to find, and cost you stock options, but a qualified and highly motivated team that stretches your budget is a good calculated risk. Recruit the best team members and provide incentives. Trying to save money by recruiting family members, or hiring only interns, is a bad risk.

Forecast 161

Forecast Stock Options Technical Review Metrics 161

Berkonomics

OCTOBER 26, 2010

Pay early stage board members of companies that are not lifestyle businesses one percent of the fully diluted equity in the form of an option that vests over four years of service. Inside board members, CEO and any other paid employees are not paid for board service in either stock options or cash.

Stock Options 66

Stock Options Early Stage Stock Vesting 66

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 10, 2022

Another example is Facebook , maintaining motivation with food, stock options, collaborative office space, an on-site laundry, and a competitive atmosphere that fosters personal growth and learning with great benefits.

Stock Options 362

Stock Options Salary Leadership Stock 362

Up and Running

DECEMBER 1, 2015

If however you are giving a “normal employee” an incentive stock option plan (more on that later), that’s entirely different. Make sure you understand all of your options before making any decisions. When business owners decide to go down the route of equity compensation, there are two primary options to choose between.

Equity 60

Equity Employee Stock Options Vesting 60

Business Plan Blog

SEPTEMBER 30, 2012

My argument for this method is that subjecting a director or advisor to the typical 30-day to 90-day post-termination exercise period used for an employee optionee holding Incentive Stock Options (ISOs) would be unduly harsh on directors and advisors.

Stock Options 45

Stock Options Stock Liquidity Event Employee 45

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 18, 2018

The rest can come from early hires (with stock options to assure commitment), equity investors, or even strategic partners. I’m not suggesting that you need all six of these as cofounders initially, but I always recommend a minimum of two founders with different perspectives.

Technical Cofounder 144

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Advisory Board Startup 144

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 19, 2017

An even better alternative could be stock options, linked to the long-term success of the company. Typical incentives give percentages of quarterly revenues and contribution as rewards for success. You need different rewards for a team running an innovation project, such as reaching agreed milestones.

Stock Options 141

Stock Options Incubator Framework Stock 141

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 11, 2014

The rest can come from early hires (with stock options to assure commitment), equity investors, or even strategic partners. I’m not suggesting that you need all six of these as cofounders initially, but I always recommend a minimum of two founders with different perspectives.

Technical Cofounder 245

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Advisory Board Startup 245