A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

FEBRUARY 14, 2012

This is part of an ongoing startup advice series where I answer (anonymized!) 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. 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

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 23, 2015

But not everybody has the right skills to build a highly successful and valuable startup from scratch. For some aspiring to be tech entrepreneurs, I often suggest a two-step process, as I argued in this post that “ The First Startup Founder You Need to Invest in Is You.” In fact, I would argue that most people don’t.

Technical Review 150

Technical Review Liquidation Preference Silicon Valley IP 150

Agile VC

MARCH 13, 2012

AGILEVC My idle thoughts on tech startups. CEO Scott Thompson alluded to their plan a couple weeks ago but the IP lawsuit itself was only official late afternoon yesterday (and now public). ’s claims of IP infringement or offer a litigator’s perspective of Yahoo!’s How To Think About The Future.

IP 100

IP IPO Social Network Silicon Valley 100

David Cohen

MARCH 30, 2020

By 2002 the NASDAQ had fallen by nearly 80%. Founded in 2006, Techstars ran our first startup accelerator in 2007. Other startups will fail, and you can acquire their talent, their IP, their customer bases for cheap. In 1999, we sold that business and I started angel investing. In 2000, the Internet bubble burst.

Founder 174

Founder Valuation Startup IP 174

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. Across both the startups I’ve personally been involved in (PayPal and LinkedIn) and the startups in which I’ve been an investor, I’ve seen a broad range of co-founder equity splits.

Equity 315

Equity Founder Sweat Equity Cofounder 315

Agile VC

DECEMBER 4, 2014

Across both the startups I’ve personally been involved in (PayPal and LinkedIn) and the startups in which I’ve been an investor, I’ve seen a broad range of co-founder equity splits. For example, when we started LinkedIn at the end of 2002, each member of the founding team essentially had a couple chunks of founders’ common stock.

Cofounder 255

Cofounder Equity Founder Sweat Equity 255

Agile VC

DECEMBER 4, 2014

Across both the startups I’ve personally been involved in (PayPal and LinkedIn) and the startups in which I’ve been an investor, I’ve seen a broad range of co-founder equity splits. For example, when we started LinkedIn at the end of 2002, each member of the founding team essentially had a couple chunks of founders’ common stock.

Cofounder 173

Cofounder Equity Founder Sweat Equity 173