Agile VC

DECEMBER 4, 2014

I like to say that “there are only co-founders” — it’s extraordinarily rare for a successful business to have just a sole founder. But not all co-founders are equal in terms of title, ownership, responsibilities, and so forth. Sometimes co-founders put off the equity split question for some time.

Cofounder 255

Cofounder Equity Founder Sweat Equity 255

Agile VC

DECEMBER 4, 2014

I like to say that “there are only co-founders” — it’s extraordinarily rare for a successful business to have just a sole founder. But not all co-founders are equal in terms of title, ownership, responsibilities, and so forth. Sometimes co-founders put off the equity split question for some time.

Cofounder 173

Cofounder Equity Founder Sweat Equity 173

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

FEBRUARY 14, 2012

But this was 2002 when AdWords was affordable and I had no competitors, so you can’t repeat that — it doesn’t matter how I did it. Maybe you worked there or a co-founder or investor has some juice). The contract says you retain the IP and are allowed to sell a product like this to other companies.

Customer 231

Customer Software Review IP Technical Review 231

View from Seed

DECEMBER 4, 2014

Editor’s note: Understanding how to divide founder equity at a startup can be tricky, even to the point of reaching emotional riffs between founders. I like to say that “there are only co-founders” — it’s extraordinarily rare for a successful business to have just a sole founder.

Equity 315

Equity Founder Sweat Equity Cofounder 315

View from Seed

JANUARY 11, 2017

These corporate VC activities go hand in hand with other strategies of large companies including internal R&D, IP licensing, M&A, etc. . Fortunately we proved skeptics wrong and every one of these strategic investors made a tidy 2.5 – 3x return once PayPal IPO’d in 2002 and then was acquired by eBay later that year.

Strategic Investors 120

Strategic Investors Post-Money Valuation Seed Stage Cofounder 120

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 10, 2010

This episode of This Week in Venture Capital featured Michael Montgomery, president of Montgomery & Co. If you don’t know Montgomery & Co it is one of the premier technology & media focused investment banks in the country (and as Michael corrected me they also have a strong Healthcare / Med tech practice).

IPO 242

IPO Venture Capital Private Placement Cofounder 242

www.humbledmba.com

SEPTEMBER 16, 2011

I had taken classes on IP, first-mover advantage, etc. If we werent careful about this, our IP claims would be worthless. I co-founded FlightCaster. Peter David responded: Inspired by this post, I wrote a blog post about stereotypic founder personalities. I started my first internet company while getting my MBA.

Stealth 90

Stealth NDA Startup IP 90