Austin Startup

AUGUST 20, 2017

Hiring is a chapter unto itself, but it deserves to lead off any discussion of context. Compensation decisions obviously affect hiring and retention. You can’t be too careful in determining comp packages for your new hires. Your Cap Table is something that deserves constant care and attention.

Technical Review 48

Technical Review Software Review Cap Table Securities and Exchange Commission 48

Altgate

JUNE 25, 2012

One who attracted much attention is David Choe, the graffiti artist hired to paint the company’s first headquarters. Instead, the dead equity languishes on the cap table, weighing down the startup and making it harder to attract and motivate the people who could impact its growth. A Significant – and Growing – Problem.

Equity 44

Equity Vesting Cap Table Technical Review 44

Up and Running

SEPTEMBER 20, 2021

This is all incorporated into a document called a Cap Table. . A cap table will help you in the strategic management of business decisions. Wondering what a cap table is, its importance, and how you can maintain it to expand your business? What is a cap table? Let’s dive in.

Cap Table 112

Cap Table Pre-Money Valuation Stock Options Option Pool 112

The Startup Toolkit

AUGUST 29, 2012

If the founding team is non-technical and you can’t figure out whether you are being screwed by your developers or whether your potential new CTO is amazing, a tech advisor can help by joining you in interviews and reviewing commits. You’ll need to keep hiring tech guys. Situations where advisors can add huge value.

Technical Review 38

Technical Review CTO Hire Cap Table Software Review 38

View from Seed

OCTOBER 15, 2014

Examples of housekeeping include the following list, though not every item will appear every time: Finance: Cash out date, burn rate, 409A valuation, cap table, common/preferred stock dashboard. Team: Hires, fires, departures, responsibility changes, major promotions, and your org chart.

Seed Stage 331

Seed Stage Cap Table Metrics Burn Rate 331

Altgate

AUGUST 25, 2012

One who attracted much attention is David Choe, the graffiti artist hired to paint the company’s first headquarters. Instead, the dead equity languishes on the cap table, weighing down the startup and making it harder to attract and motivate the people who could impact its growth. A Significant – and Growing – Problem.

Equity 28

Equity Vesting Cap Table Technical Review 28

Hunter Walker

JUNE 14, 2018

Hiring, org structure, product development philosophies and so on. Who will hold the accountable to building something they’re proud of but remember we sit on the cap table, not the org chart. . “Horizontal Expertise” – We see lots of startups, we’ve built and run large teams.

Cap Table 81

Cap Table Portfolio Vertical Reputation 81

David Teten

AUGUST 19, 2019

We have a special program if you are pre-seed and need product development. We have developed a proprietary machine learning algorithm that assesses the risk and return profile of the business and determines whether to invest in the business. Limited amount of existing debt and a clean cap table”. Alternative Capital. “

Revenue 60

Revenue Technical Review Software Review Equity 60

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 12, 2013

He had made some structural mistakes in NextMedium that meant the Cap Table and leadership team was a bit wacky. For starters they has asked him to hire a CEO (Hamet was a first timer) and that person lived in Seattle even though NextMedium was based in LA. They did development in SF and had the ad sales team in NY.

Partner 340

Partner Los Angeles South Africa Cap Table 340

techcrunch.com

APRIL 26, 2013

That way, startups only have one entity in the cap table, which simplifies documentation and structure. It’s clear that AngelList wants to help bring much of the transactional conversations and introductions that happen at the early stage of hiring and fundraising via word of mouth or in meetings online.

SEC 61

SEC Accredited Investor San Diego New York City 61

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 21, 2010

I know he’s smart but you wouldn’t hire a Javascript developer to do your database design – would you? But I don’t have money to pay a fancy lawyer – I’ll just have my cousin do it - Don’t. Your cousin specializes in entertainment law – that’s different.

Southern California 318

Southern California Silicon Valley IP Stock Options 318

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 26, 2014

It allows you to truly focus on your product/idea instead of cap tables and keeping investors happy. If you don’t want to bring in a partner, hire someone to fill in your “business gaps”, because it is exhausting to try to do everything yourself and invariably whatever you’re not comfortable doing won’t get done for the business.

Cap Table 162

Cap Table Bootstrapping Naming America 162

www.informationarbitrage.com

FEBRUARY 24, 2010

This is not only sad but incredibly frustrating, because it is so easy to see how a great technology can be developed and commercialized if only - if only the CTO hadn't been impulsive and insecure and brought on a business partner too early in the game. I am a business person, not a technologist. So my advice to CTO / Founders?

CTO Hire 40

CTO Hire Founder Cap Table Vesting 40

BeyondVC

NOVEMBER 17, 2016

We each independently fell in love with enterprise software 20+ years ago as seed investors (cos like gotomeeting/Citrix, greenplum/EMC, livperson/IPO LPSN) and founders (workmarket, onforce/Adecco, spinback/buddymedia/salesf0rce) and are now benefiting from the ecosystems, knowledge and network that we’ve collectively developed.

Cap Table 60

Cap Table Cofounder Dividend Institutional Investors 60

keen.io

FEBRUARY 5, 2013

On the other hand, this was new territory for the founders as well; they had zero experience making offers to new startup hires. As a founder, his salary was lower than any of those offered to the new hires; he also had substantially more equity. But would it make sense for both of us to take that route? What is the difference between.5%

Salary 50

Salary Equity Startup San Francisco 50

OnlyOnce

FEBRUARY 9, 2022

They are typically founder-led, often by a first-time CEO with new or incomplete management teams who need a lot of mentorship/development, and with a diversified cap table of firms that don’t own operating or consulting practices to help guide the scaling process. We needed another senior leader to join our team.

Silicon Valley 62

Silicon Valley Venture Capital Cap Table Early Stage 62

adamac.blogspot.com

MARCH 9, 2010

Maybe the CEO got his cousin from Omaha to be their lawyer or theres been some serious messing around with the cap table. It follows that an "idea guy" who "just needs to hire a few engineers" probably isnt running a tech startup. Hiring is one of the main things a startup must get right, but contract recruiters arent the way.

Technical Review 41

Technical Review CTO Hire Fractional CTO Startup 41

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 23, 2017

produced this analysis of engineering representation within VC firms: Selected VCs with Highest Representation of Developers in Workforce. HOF Capital is currently developing a proprietary sourcing tool to automatically filter for potential deal prospects that fit our criteria. VC Firm. $ Tech % of workforce. Google Ventures (GV).

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Technical Review 60

genylabs.typepad.com

SEPTEMBER 24, 2011

I wont bother going into details on start-up financing terms ( see this post for an overview of typical VC terms) except to say if you dont know and understand: the firms cap table and valuation. Have not met anyone I wanted to hire who was willing to work for equity. what kind of stock you are getting. what your rights are.

Equity 40

Equity Technical Review San Jose Stock 40

Ben's Blog

APRIL 1, 2011

Organizational design, process design, metrics, hiring and firing were all relatively straightforward skills to master compared to keeping my mind in check. I remember when I first became CEO, an investor asked me to send him the “cap table.” —The Geto Boys, Mind Playing Tricks on Me. Techniques to Calm Your Nerves.

Management 78

Management Cap Table Balance Sheet Bankruptcy 78

David Teten

OCTOBER 1, 2015

Should you co-found your company with a software development shop? I’ve talked with a number of software development shops who are eager to get into the business of cofounding companies, i.e., getting product revenue and equity instead of just consulting revenue. Vlad is also the CEO at DarwinApps , a software development shop.

Software Developers 60

Software Developers Software Development Software Review Technical Cofounder 60

Version One Ventures

MAY 22, 2018

How do you decide who you should have in your cap table? Are you looking for help and expertise in hiring, product strategy, customer development, fundraising, coaching, therapy, etc.? We are working on developing a “manifesto” of what founders can expect from us and hold us accountable for after we’ve invested.

Cap Table 60

Cap Table Cofounder Syndicate Syndication 60

Spencer Fry

APRIL 17, 2017

When I first started building Coach, I invested $30k of my own money to get a prototype working and acquire our first half dozen customers, but I (and the contract developer who I was working with) were spread too thin. As a startup in 2017, having limited resources can in and of itself sink your entire ship. Hello, debt.

Bootstrapping 63

Bootstrapping Cap Table Liquidation Preference Cofounder 63

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. Developing a Network of Advisors | 12 Months to Launch. // Dec 30, 2010 at 10:03 pm. [.]

Advisory Board 50

Advisory Board Cap Table RSS Cofounder 50

David Teten

DECEMBER 3, 2019

This provides us more time to develop meaningful relationships with prospects and customers. Tribe Capital has developed A Quantitative Approach to Product Market Fit. . 645 Ventures released a cap table simulator to help level the playing field. ff Venture Capital hired two full-time engineers to build out Totem.

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Software Review Analytics Private Equity 78

The Next Web

OCTOBER 7, 2013

They were referring to non-founder engineers, most commonly the first hire for technology businesses. Often difficult to get, the first engineer sets the tone for the rest of the development team. Cap tables sound intimidating. He or she is also often recruited without much, if any, cash in the bank.

Engineer 129

Engineer Dilution Option Pool Vesting 129

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

www.payne.org

SEPTEMBER 22, 2011

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. But this usually happens NOT to compensate for dilution, but to recognize a bigger contribution to the company than what you were originally hired for.

Equity 56

Equity Employee Vesting Preferred Stock 56

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 11, 2019

How do you develop power within a venture capital firm? How do you not only make money in terms of revenue and revenue growth, but ultimately how do you develop profits and a profit center? How do you develop the rules of that game so that you have the advantage? What questions can you ask? Where am I in the interview process?

Founder 68

Founder Lean Venture Capital Cofounder 68

blog.simeonov.com

FEBRUARY 22, 2010

I have been thinking a lot recently about how to apply agile development principles to investing and key aspects of startup development such as team building. They have voting rights which may entitle them to force or veto certain key decisions, e.g., hiring or firing the CEO, selling the company, raising money, etc.

Founder 44

Founder Vesting Agile Startup 44

This is going to be BIG.

NOVEMBER 16, 2023

That’s how it feels when your hot deal from two years ago winds up running low on cash and gets into a pay-to-play round that wipes out the cap table. Your Series A and beyond companies are generally hitting their stride right out of the gate, especially around sales, gtm and hiring top tier candidates. You have outcomes.

Non-Compete 97

Non-Compete Cofounder Cap Table Reputation 97

venturehacks.com

FEBRUARY 24, 2010

Engineer heavy startups are common now, so doubling or tripling your development team at the outset is incredible. As it happens to be, I am looking for a lead developer. Reply # J · May 31, 2010 I am curious about situations where neither of the founders qualifies as the lead developer. Geeks can always be hired.

Cofounder 101

Cofounder Founder Technical Cofounder Technical Review 101

venturehacks.com

MARCH 21, 2008

YC acts like a super advisor, not an investor—and YC makes their companies happen by helping develop the company’s product, introducing them to investors, and branding their companies. Advisor compensation Whether you’re hiring a normal advisor or super advisor: Advisory shares are usually issued as common stock options.

Advisory Board 44

Advisory Board Cap Table Vesting Equity 44

www.paulgraham.com

APRIL 28, 2010

Then you can gradually transformyourself from a consulting company into a product company, and haveyour clients pay your development expenses. An advantage of consulting, as a way to develop a product, is thatyou know youre making something at least one customer wants. There never has to be atime when you have no revenues.

Technical Review 76

Technical Review Startup Software Review Angel Investor 76

Hunter Walker

AUGUST 23, 2023

It doesn’t mean you don’t develop a personal affinity – it’s best when you do! I can vouch for his genuine optimism Hunter Walk: You got to work with a number of different VCs on your cap table for Anchor. Investing in someone is primarily a business relationship.

Founder 87

Founder Angel Investor Cap Table Distribution 87

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 4, 2021

It'd be great if we could somehow hire people all over the world, that would be great. And we had just had massive challenges trying to move money to the different contractors we were hiring in different places. And so you want a lot of variety in the people that you hire. And so, it had always been attractive to me.

IPO 113

IPO Cofounder Technical Review Government 113

Austin Startup

DECEMBER 10, 2017

My friend is actually building his own house, down to hiring the day laborers and all the trades, procuring all the materials, and supervising every step of the process. Many of us have done that, but most likely we have dealt with a builder, an architect and/or a general contractor to bring the house to completion.

Georgia 48

Georgia Startup Incubator Harvest 48