Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 24, 2016

I always tell entrepreneurs that two heads are better than one, so the first task in many startups is finding a co-founder or two. Giving a co-founder a salary won’t get you the “fire in the belly” you want. You need to find the skills or experience you don’t have in business, technology, or money.

Equity 120

Equity Cofounder Technical Cofounder Intellectual Property 120

YoungUpstarts

AUGUST 31, 2020

by Roland Polzin , MBA and Co-founder of Wing AI. Alternatively, individual VA contractors can be hired for a monthly salary, or workers for short gigs can be found via Fiverr or TaskRabbit. Roland Polzin is co-founder and the CMO of Wing AI , and a 2020 MBA of the Paul Merage School of Business at UC Irvine.

Artificial Inteligence 214

Artificial Inteligence Mali Management Technical Review 214

Austin Startup

NOVEMBER 29, 2017

It follows up on my posts discussing why early stage startups should — or should not — move to Silicon Valley. Should Early Stage Startups Move to Austin because of Capital? Tim O’Reilly, Founder at O’Reilly Media and promoter of open source and Web 2.0 Should Early Stage Startups Move to Austin because of Capital?

Early Stage 48

Early Stage Austin Silicon Valley Texas 48

David Teten

JANUARY 19, 2021

(co-written with Jamie Finney, Founding Partner at Greater Colorado Venture Fund. From RBI, Flexible VCs borrow the ability to reap meaningful returns without demanding founders build for an exit. By tying payments to actual revenues, founders and investors remain aligned around the company’s real-time performance, good or bad.

Cofounder 78

Cofounder Technical Review Equity Dividend 78

Up and Running

JULY 28, 2022

Develop a founders agreement. A founders’ agreement is a legal contract defining and governing the relationship between cofounders. Its importance is to outline founders’ rights, responsibilities, ownership, and roles. The whole point is to avoid business disputes that may come up between the founders.

Small Business 167

Small Business Intellectual Property Cofounder Software Review 167

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 9, 2011

I covered what I call “the co-founder mythology.&# Either you’re not technical and you think you need a technical co-founder or vice-versa. It is increasingly popular to have “founder dating&# or “startup weekend hackathons&# of some variety or the other. Hire your co-founder.

Cofounder 393

Cofounder Founder Vesting Founder Vesting 393

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2017

As an early-stage VC I love this phase. Sam also had a vision as early as 2012 about how MakeSpace would be a large employer of middle-income jobs: The company would hire employees rather than just have contractors and he would lead the effort to ensure they had opportunities for growth and benefits for their families.

Operations 286

Operations New York City Technical Review Startup 286

Steve Blank

MAY 19, 2015

Organizational debt is all the people/culture compromises made to “just get it done” in the early stages of a startup. retaining their existing hires who were working for intern-like salaries with little equity. Just when things should be going great, organizational debt can turn a growing company into a chaotic nightmare.

Technical Review 120

Technical Review Salary Early Stage Software Review 120

ReadWriteStart

MAY 22, 2023

According to Rolf Illenberger, co-founder of VRdirect, a virtual reality platform in Munich, none of the big European tech companies are currently relevant to the future of the Metaverse. Even though Finland offers free and high-quality education, it cannot compete with Silicon Valley regarding salaries.

Finland 187

Finland Europe Estonia Silicon Valley 187

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 13, 2013

By the way, the salary, which was a good salary, was $27,000 entry salary, and engineers were paid $31,000 to $35,000. [00:10:30] You’ve got entrepreneurs and founders who are really – a lot of them are in the very early stage of their startup. Technical founder. You’re 42.

Cofounder 337

Cofounder Technical Cofounder San Diego Startup 337

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2013

My internal compass has always steered me strongly toward the belief that founders who can scale with their startup companies are better to back that founders who eventually need to hire a CEO. Very few founder CEOs go into the job ever expecting to give up their seat. We set out to find Jonathan’s “co-founder.”

Technical Review 303

Technical Review Cofounder Analytics Founder 303

David Teten

APRIL 1, 2021

A well-organized library of best practices for founders in your vertical, which you can share as appropriate. First Round Search , Startupschool , and GSV Passport are examples of comprehensive founder resources from investors. I have developed a founder curriculum on my blog. AskAnything.VC Organize events in your vertical.

Private Equity 78

Private Equity Venture Capital Portfolio Equity 78

Scalable Startup

JUNE 21, 2011

Describing this other person variously as a co-founder, partner, CTO, and collaborator, the focus has been on someone with the right combination of technical experience/excellence, mutual chemistry, plus the right timing and inclination in their lives to do this. I’m going to keep looking for a cofounder.

Cofounder 20

Cofounder Technical Cofounder Founder Los Angeles 20

David Teten

AUGUST 19, 2019

RBI normally requires founders to pay back their investors with a fixed percentage of revenue until they have finished providing the investor with a fixed return on capital, which they agree upon in advance. For background, see Revenue-Based Investing: A New Option for Founders who Care About Control. Decathlon Capital.

Revenue 60

Revenue Technical Review Software Review Equity 60

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

SEPTEMBER 4, 2012

So Member Desk is a virtual and yet it can also be physical, literally sitting in the front of the co- working space inexpensive way to do that for pretty much any organization. But the answer is the co-founder’s been in the industry for 30 years and he’s somebody and so they can get meetings. Jason: Right.

Cofounder 199

Cofounder Technical Review Chicago Technical Cofounder 199

David Teten

JULY 25, 2017

We also have a better known brand than some of our early stage companies, so we can leverage that to help source talent. Most importantly, we have regular meetings with later-stage VCs and enterprise clients both in the US and internationally to discuss our companies which fit their investment mandates.

Portfolio 60

Portfolio Technical Review Private Equity Database 60

David Teten

APRIL 16, 2012

Would you like to have a salary from day one of your startup? Initially you will likely be working out of our co-working space on West 36th St., About ff Venture Capital ( http:/ffvc.com ) : We are one of the most active early-stage investors in New York. The company is already funded and can readily pay market salaries.

Cofounder 133

Cofounder New York Venture Capital B2C 133

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 14, 2014

I had witnessed a number of early-stage tech startups in LA raise seed capital from the Bay Area and relocate. We formed a partnership with some of our favorite early stage investors and friends including Jim Andelman at Rincon Ventures and Peter Lee at Baroda. We had a specific goal in mind. So we went for it.

Early Stage 290

Early Stage Venture Capital Los Angeles Coder 290

ReadWriteStart

FEBRUARY 18, 2020

When starting a business, it’s typical to look for venture capital, angel investors, and even co-founders to help get the company up and running. During the early stages of your business, it’s possible to rely on credit cards and the personal savings of startup founders as you get things up and running.

Bootstrapping 145

Bootstrapping Startup Cofounder Angel Investor 145

David Teten

JANUARY 21, 2021

(co-written with Jamie Finney, Founding Partner at Greater Colorado Venture Fund. This essay is part of a series on alternative VC: I: Revenue-Based Investing: a new option for founders who care about control. III: Why are Revenue-Based VCs investing in so many women and underrepresented founders?

Equity 78

Equity Revenue Cofounder Colorado 78

This is going to be BIG.

MARCH 5, 2014

At the early stage, the ranks of the non-partner investor are disappearing. Christina Bechhold didn''t forget that--and so she co-founded her own angel group. It''s a group of her peers from the professional world--up and coming titans of finance and consulting with good salaries and not a lot of dependents.

Venture Capital 121

Venture Capital Early Stage Cofounder Angel Groups 121

Hunter Walker

JANUARY 15, 2016

By the end of 2004 I had brought on two co-founders: John Vars – who is now the Chief Product Office at TaskRabbit, and Steven Reading took over Sales and Revenue. Though I should point out was still doing client work for OneMatchFire until mid-2005 until the business could pay full salaries.

Technical Review 48

Technical Review Startup Cofounder SMS 48

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 5, 2009

As the conversation began to get down to how much stock and salary we could offer van Dam, we left the barber to finish his work and went to a payphone to call our CEO to confirm the deal. Unlike Intel chips, MIPS chip architecture also made it possible to plug in a math co-processor. A few days later Gordon became a founder.

North Carolina 128

North Carolina Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 128

blog.nahurst.com

JULY 19, 2010

The graphic below balances the risks cofounders take with their relative contributions to help answer this question. This covers one of the most common situations I encounter: For a pre-funding web startup whose team includes only a non-technical cofounder, how much equity should an incoming technical cofounder get?

Technical Cofounder 43

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Equity Salary 43

The Startup Magazine

MAY 15, 2018

The form of companies dominating the startup scene changes , new types of startup founders appear, different partnerships are created, and new, powerful innovation hubs emerge. Not to mention that there are still numerous diversity problems, high salaries, and the lack of opportunities for early-stage businesses to hire experienced talent.

North America 83

North America America Silicon Valley Los Angeles 83

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 1, 2016

Most founders have a strong sense of what they’re trying to achieve. They hire their initial co-founders and early employees and everybody has a sense of “mission.” We want to invest in early-stage technology enabled startup businesses – upfront in the funding cycle.

Leadership 150

Leadership Southern California San Diego Hiring 150

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 31, 2016

by Brent Freeman , co-founder and president of Stealth Venture Labs. So we continued to hire more full-time salaried employees to help ease the pain. Despite what many entrepreneurs may think, know this: Not all growth is good growth. In fact, expanding too quickly can be just as dangerous as not growing at all.

Los Angeles 100

Los Angeles Stealth San Francisco Cofounder 100

ConversionXL

MAY 27, 2022

Only around 10–15% of B2B leads turn into paying customers, and it’s because tactics optimizing for the early stages of the funnel only cater to early-stage goals. It’s their job to implement a holistic approach to growth that encompasses both marketing and sales and looks at every stage of the buyer’s journey.

Demand 95

Demand Management B2B Campaign 95

Steve Blank

MARCH 1, 2016

The show follows the journeys of founders who share what it takes to build a startup – from restaurants to rocket scientists, to online gifts to online groceries and more. Joining me in SiriusXM’s studio in New York were: Nina Tandon , CEO and co-founder of EpiBone , the world’s first company growing bones for skeletal reconstruction.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Entrepreneur Michigan Detroit 120

ReadWriteStart

NOVEMBER 12, 2010

Compounding what's already just a general shortage of engineers, those tech companies with deep pockets are offering big salaries and bonuses to those willing to join (and hopefully stay). Making hiring decisions, particularly at the early stage of a company, is both challenging and crucial. thread on Quora gives just a glimpse.

San Francisco 118

San Francisco Non-Compete Deal Flow Startup 118

SoCal CTO

APRIL 28, 2014

I guess it should not be a surprise that Founders have lots of challenges working with developers. Challenges I started by asking the founders in the room to tell me some of the challenges they have working with developers. Developers (and Founders) are challenged to know how much is okay in terms of bugs.

Technical Cofounder 280

Technical Cofounder Developer Fractional CTO CTO Hire 280

Feld Thoughts

JULY 29, 2011

Finance Friday’s gets off the ground with today’s post by introducing you to an imaginary startup, the entrepreneurs that we’ll being following throughout the series, and their first challenges: splitting up the founders’ equity and addressing the case where one of the founders provides the initial seed capital for the business.

Equity 137

Equity Finance Pre-Money Valuation Denver 137

Hunter Walker

MARCH 16, 2024

One who is currently building his company in public [ie sharing a bunch of data, progress, and even setbacks, that a startup founder might normally not disclose]. HW: Warmly has done some co-marketing with Zoom and launched as one of their earliest ‘Zoom Apps.’ Hunter Walk: Your startup Warmly recently turned four years old.

Cofounder 99

Cofounder Early Stage Salary Hiring 99

Hunter Walker

APRIL 27, 2014

We brief our major investors quarterly and decided to model our LP meeting after what “big funds” do, albeit with a few Homebrew flourishes :) Logistically this meant an afternoon session with presentations/Q&A then a dinner with founders/advisors. We love our founders. Roughly 50% result in a first meeting.

LP 97

LP Cofounder Term Sheet Valuation 97

Rob Go

AUGUST 2, 2012

Almost all of the seed stage founders I work with pay themselves a very meager salary post seed round. As a founder, you don’t want to signal that you are suddenly in it for the cash comp – you are not. So I hesitate to give strict salary ranges. Clearly, your equity is the most important thing.

Salary 55

Salary Seed Stage Cofounder Equity 55

The Next Web

OCTOBER 3, 2012

Andrew is the co-founder and CTO of Parse.ly , a technology startup that provides big data insights to the web’s best publishers. He wrote: When startups die, the official cause of death is always either running out of money or a critical founder bailing. Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Andrew Montalenti.

Cofounder 155

Cofounder Technical Cofounder Technical Review Software Review 155

Hippoland

JULY 24, 2018

I enjoy learning about new technologies and ideas – and you get to see a lot of them in this business especially in early stage investing. And I enjoy working with founders immensely. To be clear, this isn’t your salary – this is your budget to run your company.

Salary 48

Salary Capital Call Bootstrapping Cofounder 48