Hunter Walker

FEBRUARY 20, 2024

Founder Vesting [Jared Hecht/USV] – Jared joined USV earlier this year and it’ll be interesting to see how his writing changes as he adds ‘institutional VC’ to his founder and angel investor knowledge. Stretching things out to a six-year vest helps to prevent co-founder abandonment.

Founder Vesting 59

Founder Vesting Vesting Cap Table Founder 59

Altgate

AUGUST 25, 2012

Re-posted from post co-authored with Prof. —————– Dead equity — equity held by employees and founders no longer working at the company — is a large and growing problem. Choe opted to forgo a cash payment “in the thousands” for the equity equivalent at the time.

Equity 28

Equity Vesting Cap Table Technical Review 28

Hippoland

APRIL 10, 2016

Dear elizy : I started a company in school with two co-founders. We are trying to decide how much equity to allocate to each person. I would like to split the equity equally, since it seems only fair. But, Ada wants to split the equity 50% her, 20% Bob and 20% me with a 10% option pool.

Cofounder 48

Cofounder Cap Table Equity Vesting 48

Pascal's View

JULY 9, 2017

Andrew Krowne and I recently co-wrote an article in Tech Crunch , Why SAFE Notes Are Not Safe for Entrepreneurs. The most serious unintended consequence occurs from “note waterfalls”— converting multiple notes that have multiple valuation caps. Many entrepreneurs lose track of what they have been cooking up in the cap table.

Post-Money Valuation 49

Post-Money Valuation Valuation Covenant Cap Table 49

ithacaVC

DECEMBER 9, 2013

Also, during the process, we had to clean up the company’s cap table and make sure that we all agreed on who owned what on a pro forma pre-money basis. Without having a complete pre-money cap table, it is impossible to calculate a share price. Sometimes those issues take extra time to resolve.

Term Sheet 58

Term Sheet Cap Table Technical Review IP 58

This is going to be BIG.

MAY 4, 2022

For most founders, fundraising is a struggle. Would you take a check from a corporate raider whose private equity dollars come with mass layoffs and union-busting? Morality aside, I’d say given the inherent riskiness of startups, I’m not sure this would be a great addition to your cap table. Drug kingpin?

Cap Table 163

Cap Table Cofounder Private Equity Finance 163

Eric Friedman

JUNE 27, 2016

Bigger/better advisors who get more equity have things like; excellent domain expertise to help you avoid pitfalls, deep connections within the industry to help with the intros, partnerships, and more. Big strategic advisors are the folks that add credibility to your co. from a 10 year old co.

Equity 98

Equity Vesting Cap Table Common Stock 98

Feld Thoughts

AUGUST 26, 2011

When we were last with our SayAhh cofounders, they had implemented an accounting system and Jane had contributed $50,000 for a 55/45% equity split. The investments by the founders created two transactions. The Basic Accounting Equation states that Total Assets always must equal Total Liabilities plus Equity.

Balance Sheet 128

Balance Sheet Cofounder Cap Table Delaware 128

The Next Web

OCTOBER 21, 2013

Neil Rimer is a Partner and co-founder of Index Ventures. Yet, surprisingly, we continue to come across founders who have made significant mistakes in their early capital raises that we suspect go against their own instincts and jeopardize the foundations of the businesses they are building.

Cap Table 128

Cap Table Option Pool Angel Investor Entrepreneur 128

David Teten

AUGUST 21, 2019

Most founders who are raising capital look first to traditional equity VCs. Revenue-Based Investing (“RBI”) is a new form of VC financing, distinct from the preferred equity structure most VCs use. For more background, see Revenue-Based Investing: A New Option for Founders who Care About Control. But should they?

Revenue 60

Revenue Liquidation Preference Equity Cofounder 60

OnlyOnce

FEBRUARY 9, 2022

In our prior lives, the Bolster founders worked together to scale up a business called Return Path and also. worked as advisors and mentors to numerous early stage founders and startups. The roots of Bolster Prime and Bolster Ventures pre-date the founding of Bolster. What about the middle?

Silicon Valley 62

Silicon Valley Venture Capital Cap Table Early Stage 62

venturehacks.com

FEBRUARY 24, 2010

SUPPORTED BY Products Archives @venturehacks Books AngelList About RSS How to pick a co-founder by Naval Ravikant on November 12th, 2009 Update : Also see our 40-minute interview on this topic. Picking a co-founder is your most important decision. One founder companies can work, against the odds (hello, Mark Zuckerberg).

Cofounder 101

Cofounder Founder Technical Cofounder Technical Review 101

venturehacks.com

SEPTEMBER 22, 2011

The Equity Equation. As this nuclear winter of venture hacks continues, I thought you might enjoy our thoughts on Paul Graham’s The Equity Equation. ” Read the rest of The Equity Equation first; it is great. You have to pay market rates regardless of the equity equation. Venture Hacks Good advice for startups.

Equity 40

Equity Cap Table Valuation RSS 40

David Teten

DECEMBER 3, 2019

Private equity and venture capital investors are copying our sisters in the hedge fund world: we’re trying to automate more of our job. . To learn more about this space, I suggest join an online community I co-founded, PEVCTech. . In the private equity universe, most Partners have primary training as deal-makers, not as managers.

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Software Review Analytics Private Equity 78

David Teten

OCTOBER 1, 2015

Should you co-found your company with a software development shop? Not surprisingly, the list above also is ranked from least to most equity stake in an investment for the investor, relative to the cash they invest. The question is: how should they be compensated when cofounding a company? mentor VCs, e.g., most VCs. The cliffs?

Software Developers 60

Software Developers Software Development Software Review Technical Cofounder 60

Spencer Fry

APRIL 17, 2017

As a bootstrapped startup, the only accountability you have is to yourself and to your co-founder if you have one. How much and at what terms, is up to the deal you strike with your investors, but you can’t take money without giving away equity. Having great accountability. Nobody can tell you what to do.

Bootstrapping 63

Bootstrapping Cap Table Liquidation Preference Cofounder 63

This is going to be BIG.

DECEMBER 21, 2017

Tech VC is a pretty mature marketplace--the players are known, the process is established, and so while relationship building might take time, usually you can estimate how long a deal will take with some accuracy (besides, of course, that it takes longer than the founder wants). 3) Find a flexible lead.

Cap Table 90

Cap Table Cofounder Valuation .Net 90

David Teten

JULY 12, 2017

I thought it might be helpful to provide transparency on how we and many of our VC peers think about optimizing the cap table for our companies. . First, a formal definition: According to Capital Dynamics , “Co-investments are direct investments in a company made alongside and on the same terms as a lead [General Partner].

Syndicate 60

Syndicate Syndication Institutional Investors LP 60

blog.simeonov.com

FEBRUARY 22, 2010

Simeon, can you tell us how you structure ownership and control so you can fire your co-founders if necessary? The first part will dispel some myths, address the lifecycle of founder agreements and the key compensation and control parameters in them. Let’s start by dispelling some myths: There is a standard founder agreement.

Founder 44

Founder Vesting Agile Startup 44

David Teten

DECEMBER 12, 2017

In his white paper How Private Equity and Venture Capital Investors Are Eating Their Own Dogfood , PEVCTECH.com founder David Teten explored how private equity and venture capital investors are trying to automate more of their job. The industry is now dominated by hedge funds and other quant driven approaches.

Early Stage 60

Early Stage Technical Review Software Review Venture Capital 60

NZ Entrepreneur

JULY 12, 2018

We often see single founders slogging it out on their own. Founders can be reluctant to give up equity and control of their idea to bring in a co-founder alongside them to share in the decision making, as well as the highs and lows. Do you really need a co-founder? In fact, the average start-up had 1.72

Cofounder 44

Cofounder Founder Vesting Cap Table 44

venturehacks.com

MARCH 21, 2008

If your company hasn’t raised a Series A, increase the advisor’s equity by roughly 30%-50% to account for dilution from seed investors, Series A investors, option pools, swimming pools, and the like. Finally, there is a beauty to paying in equity rather than an equivalent amount of cash. What are advisory shares?

Advisory Board 44

Advisory Board Cap Table Vesting Equity 44

Feld Thoughts

JULY 14, 2015

A company raises $1m of seed money from angels in a convertible note with a $6m cap. Assuming equity is raised at or above that cap, the total dilution, before the new money, is 16.6% (equivalent to an equity financing of $1m at a $6m post money valuation. Here’s the scenario. ” They are running out of money.

Recapitalization 70

Recapitalization Pre-Money Valuation Post-Money Valuation Angel Investor 70

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 9, 2020

I've known Brian Chesky, Co-Founder, CEO and Head of Community at Airbnb for a long time. I think every founder, every CEO, every leader, could learn something, could take heart from Brian's example and I hope they will. Brian Chesky : I am Brian Chesky, co-founder, CEO, and head of community at Airbnb.

Silicon Valley 60

Silicon Valley Hosting Cofounder Employee 60

venturehacks.com

OCTOBER 21, 2010

Update : Check out our $9 cap table which calculates the effect of the option pool shuffle on your effective valuation. Do you mean the shares go to the founders? What if the founder already included an option pool in the existing shares outstanding? share to $1.00/share: Or we can just do 10% standard terms.

Option Pool 68

Option Pool Pre-Money Valuation Dilution Valuation 68

David Teten

MARCH 18, 2021

(co-written with Stephane Nasser , co-founder of OpenVC , an open-source initiative to collect and analyze all VC theses.). OpenVC is a new, open-source initiative to collect and analyze all publicly available VC theses, to help founders more efficiently find the right investors, and vice-versa. Technical founders .

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Cofounder Venture Capital B2B 78

abovethecrowd.com

JUNE 2, 2021

This “gain” ($34B last year alone) is a result of a direct wealth-transfer to these individuals FROM the previous owners of the company — founders, executives, employees, and venture investors. Is it disrespectful to imply that the founders, executives, VC-backers, and the boards of these companies are gullible or naive?

IPO 82

IPO Customer Matching Silicon Valley 82

Haystack

DECEMBER 28, 2019

The result is more startups, more money and firms to fund it, and an increasing belief that access to technology-related equity (either as a founder, employee, or investor) must become increasingly democratized or rebalanced as a result of the compounding effects at scale we are now witnessing. 3/ The Streaming Media Effect.

China 146

China Startup Lock-up Period Cap Table 146