article thumbnail

Cliff Notes S-1: Kayak ? AGILEVC

Agile VC

Kayak was started here in my backyard of Boston… co-founder & CTO Paul English and the product/engineering team is based here in Concord MA. Co-founder & CEO Steve Hafner and the business team are based in Norwalk, CT. What They Do: Travel search engine. Pre-money valuation was approx.

article thumbnail

Founders Should Set Aside More Equity for Their Team & “Split the Pain” With Investors

Hunter Walker

Employee options pools, typically created at the point of financings, shouldn’t be treated as haggling over dilution, but rather a strategic resource that will help founders build the best team and, by extension, a more valuable company.

Equity 94
Insiders

Sign Up for our Newsletter

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

article thumbnail

What is it Like to Negotiate a VC Round?

Both Sides of the Table

In the old days VCs funded off of a “pre-moneyvaluation. If you add the pre-money valuation (let’s say $8 million) to the amount of money you’re raising (let’s say $2 million) you get the post-money valuation. Those are the big three.

article thumbnail

Why Co-Founders Are a Startup's Biggest Liability | The Startup Lawyer

thestartuplawyer.com

He obviously never launched a startup and got shafted by a co-founder. He obviously never launched a startup and got shafted by a co-founder. You can start by examining every aspect of the co-founder relationship. Because now you have more to lose than just a company and your (or someone else’s) money.

article thumbnail

10 Rosh Hashanah Resolutions for Startup Founders

VC Cafe

The past year was a wild ride for startups and founders, giving a whole new meaning to the ”rollercoaster” aspect of being an entrepreneur. Patrick Collison , self-made billionaire founder of Stripe. Bill Gates , founder of Microsoft. ValuatIon should be a function of value, not ego. Our goals, their goals.

Founder 187
article thumbnail

How to Start a Startup

www.paulgraham.com

And since a startup thatsucceeds ordinarily makes its founders rich, that implies gettingrich is doable too. A lot ofwould-be startup founders think the key to the whole process is theinitial idea, and from that point all you have to do is execute.Venture capitalists know better. Ideally you want between two and four founders.

Startup 105
article thumbnail

The Option Pool Shuffle

venturehacks.com

If you don’t keep your eyes on the option pool while you’re negotiating valuation, your investors will have you playing (and losing) a game that we like to call: Option Pool Shuffle You have successfully negotiated a $2M investment on a $8M pre-money valuation by pitting the famous Blue Shirt Capital against Herd Mentality Management.