NZ Entrepreneur

MAY 27, 2019

Wondering how to find the right cofounder but don’t know where to start? If you are a solo founder, you may be able to do it all on your own initially but you’re making it very difficult for yourself. If you’re scared about giving up on control or equity, then read on. Finding a technical cofounder.

Technical Cofounder 64

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Technical Review Software Review 64

The Next Web

NOVEMBER 20, 2013

There are a lot of variables to go into calculating a fair equity split a startup team. If people are funding the business, they should get a premium because at the end of the day, cash funding founders are acting no different than a seed stage investor. You can follow George on Twitter at @georgedeeb and @RedRocketVC.

Cofounder 136

Cofounder Equity Founder Seed Stage 136

Agile VC

DECEMBER 4, 2014

I like to say that “there are only co-founders” — it’s extraordinarily rare for a successful business to have just a sole founder. But not all co-founders are equal in terms of title, ownership, responsibilities, and so forth. Sometimes co-founders put off the equity split question for some time.

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Cofounder Equity Founder Sweat Equity 255

The Startup Toolkit

FEBRUARY 15, 2013

false As a cheatsheet, the “normal” equity structure is: Founder terms: 4 year vesting, 1 year cliff, for everyone, including you. 2.0% ) : 4 year vesting, optional cliff, full acceleration on exit. Getting equity structures right. Cliffs & vesting. Vesting is how we fix that. Advisor terms ( 0.5–2.0%

Vesting 56

Vesting Equity Cofounder Technical Review 56

Feld Thoughts

SEPTEMBER 2, 2011

Jane and Dick, our fearless cofounders of SayAhh, have set up an accounting system and created their first set of financial statements. The founders each have common shares that will vest over four years. Equity is split 55% and 45%, but where is that officially recorded? Time to update the cap table.

Cap Table 133

Cap Table CTO Hire Technical Cofounder Cofounder 133

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 27, 2023

Every entrepreneur needs to understand the following basics, to be addressed at company formation, as they engage a qualified attorney to draw up the paperwork: Allocate founder’s stock commensurate with commitment. This is the purpose of a vesting schedule, which issues allocated stock over time. This is called stock dilution control.

Stock 240

Stock .Net Vesting Founder Vesting 240

Agile VC

DECEMBER 4, 2014

I like to say that “there are only co-founders” — it’s extraordinarily rare for a successful business to have just a sole founder. But not all co-founders are equal in terms of title, ownership, responsibilities, and so forth. Sometimes co-founders put off the equity split question for some time.

Cofounder 173

Cofounder Equity Founder Sweat Equity 173

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.

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Cofounder Founder Vesting Founder Vesting 393

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

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 8, 2022

Most entrepreneurs struggle with many startup founders quandaries in building their business, and these key dilemmas are probably the biggest source of pain and failure for the entrepreneur lifestyle. Should you start a company solo or find co-founders to help you? The co-founder relationship dilemma.

Founder 325

Founder Hockey Stick Cofounder Liquidity Event 325

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 15, 2021

Every entrepreneur needs to understand the following basics, to be addressed at company formation, as they engage a qualified attorney to draw up the paperwork: Allocate founder’s stock commensurate with commitment. This is the purpose of a vesting schedule, which issues allocated stock over time. This is called stock dilution control.

Vesting 298

Vesting Dilution Stock Founder Vesting 298

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. Below, Lee Hower offers advice for approaching these equity discussions objectively and properly.

Equity 315

Equity Founder Sweat Equity Cofounder 315

Scott Edward Walker

JUNE 30, 2019

In this brief video from a few weeks ago, Michael shares some solid advice with respect to how much equity to give your co-founder(s). Here are a few highlights: “Your first thought has to be, ‘how do I come up with an equity split that is going to maximize the motivation of my teammates’.” (at Cheers, Scott.

Cofounder 45

Cofounder Equity Vesting Video 45

Altgate

JUNE 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 44

Equity Vesting Cap Table Technical Review 44

www.startuplessonslearned.com

MAY 4, 2012

Founders Dilemmas: Equity Splits. The following is an excerpt from HBS Professor Noam Wasserman’s new book, The Founders Dilemmas: Anticipating and Avoiding the Pitfalls That Can Sink a Startup. On average, the founders who keep the most control over their company make the least amount of money. Lessons Learned.

Equity 72

Equity Founder Technical Cofounder Cofounder 72

www.avc.com

SEPTEMBER 22, 2011

Employee Equity: How Much? The most common comment in this long and complicated MBA Mondays series on Employee Equity is the question of how much equity should you grant when you make a hire. And the amount of equity you need to grant to accomplish these hires is also an art and most certainly not a science.

Equity 64

Equity Employee CTO Hire Fractional CTO 64

The Startup Magazine

FEBRUARY 21, 2024

Arif Bhalwani is the co-founder and CEO of Third Eye Capital (TEC) in Toronto, Canada. This hands-on approach is indicative of a vested interest in the success of the business, far removed from the notion of lending to “bad” companies. The firm has made more than $4.5

Technical Review 134

Technical Review Due Diligence Bankruptcy Intellectual Property 134

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

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 29, 2013

” From the hyperbolic Jason Calacanis weighing in that “The petty VC’s did everything to deride [Naval, the co-founder of AngelList]” as though the industry was collectively s g its pants that AngelList was going to put us out of business. founder fighting. founder fighting. Both are right.

Syndicate 356

Syndicate Syndication Cofounder Early Stage 356

Scalable Startup

OCTOBER 9, 2014

Talking to CEO and CTO about role as co-founder/COO. How much equity should I ask for? > You need to be positioned as an equal partner, regardless of equity or title. > > The cofounder title is much easier to give away then real stock. > Vesting? > Your equity depends on all of these? >

Cofounder 20

Cofounder Technical Cofounder Equity Vesting 20

Scott Edward Walker

SEPTEMBER 28, 2011

Question My co-founders and I are working on a cool new site, and we’ll be ready to launch in a few weeks. Vesting Restrictions. The first deadly mistake relates to vesting restrictions. Otherwise, if one of the founders quits after a few months, he would take all of his shares with him.

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Vesting Software Review IP Intellectual Property 89

www.inc.com

SEPTEMBER 24, 2011

Should You Share Equity with Consultants? To grow his cash-strapped start-up, Parker ended up sharing equity -- not only with employees, but also with consultants and vendors. Parker found that equity as compensation helped build loyalty to his company -- even among consultants. But sharing equity can have pitfalls, too.

Fractional CTO 40

Fractional CTO Equity Iowa Technical Cofounder 40

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 10, 2019

Most entrepreneurs struggle with many startup founders quandaries in building their business, and these key dilemmas are probably the biggest source of pain and failure for the entrepreneur lifestyle. Should you start a company solo or find co-founders to help you? The co-founder relationship dilemma.

Hockey Stick 243

Hockey Stick Cofounder Liquidity Event Startup 243

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

Andrew Payne

SEPTEMBER 9, 2017

I’ve probably had a thousand or more discussions about startup equity: figuring out how much to offer, negotiating, or advising others. In practice, most equity grants within a company are driven by broad calibrations with existing employees. And, how can founders talk about percentages before any funding?

Equity 71

Equity Founder Vesting Dilution 71

David Teten

MAY 7, 2019

We agree on an equity split, vesting, and initial compensation structure. See Should you co-found a company with your friend? And how do you split the equity? Here’s How to Do Your Due Diligence First. We build a basic deck together and ideally a simple demo. This work is unpaid. We’re off to the races! Sounds great!

America 60

America Technical Review Advisory Board Due Diligence 60

David Teten

JULY 10, 2019

pre-launch, BIG equity, big peeps involved–ANY TIPS?? We agree on an equity split, vesting, and initial compensation structure. See Should you co-found a company with your friend? And how do you split the equity? Looking 4 entrepreneurial product mgr/biz-dev killer 4 a network-based service.

America 60

America Technical Review Advisory Board Due Diligence 60

Eric Friedman

JUNE 27, 2016

Total = 0.75% for 3 advisors that vest as you see fit to help you over the next 1–4 years (more on vesting below). 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.

Equity 98

Equity Vesting Cap Table Common Stock 98

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 24, 2012

The following is an excerpt from HBS Professor Noam Wasserman’s new book, The Founder's Dilemmas: Anticipating and Avoiding the Pitfalls That Can Sink a Startup. The book taps Noam’s analyses of data on 10,000 founders, plus the personal stories of Evan Williams of Twitter, Tim Westergren of Pandora, and two dozen other founders.

Equity 168

Equity Founder Cofounder Vesting 168

Scott Edward Walker

FEBRUARY 6, 2016

“I didn’t even know what a vesting schedule was… [and] that mistake probably cost me billions of dollars.” Indeed, the failure to set-up vesting schedules is now the most common mistake I see startups make. This is exactly what would happen without vesting schedules. www.youtube.com/watch?v=-R01YcgJ3Yw. v=-R01YcgJ3Yw.

Vesting 40

Vesting Cofounder Equity Dilution 40

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 29, 2018

Of course, initially these founder’s shares were worth essentially nothing, but it doesn’t take much of an imagination to grasp the possibilities. Now is the time to talk to a qualified attorney, and get some discipline in place for the following strategies: Manage founder’s shares like gold with partners.

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Stock Vesting Preferred Stock Cofounder 129

Steve Blank

MAY 19, 2015

retaining their existing hires who were working for intern-like salaries with little equity. I got answers that sounded like the Tom’s – new stock grants for the executive staff, great new building, and oh, by the way, Tom and his co-founder got to sell some stock in the new round. Upgrade their salaries and equity ASAP.

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Technical Review Salary Early Stage Software Review 120

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 14, 2014

Most entrepreneurs struggle with many startup Founders dilemmas in building their business, and these key dilemmas are probably the biggest source of pain and failure for the entrepreneur lifestyle. Should you start a company solo or find co-Founders to help you? The co-Founder relationship dilemma.

Hockey Stick 268

Hockey Stick Cofounder Entrepreneur Liquidity Event 268

Scott Edward Walker

DECEMBER 14, 2015

One of the biggest mistakes I see startups make is failing to set-up vesting schedules for the founders. v=-R01YcgJ3Yw What Is a Vesting Schedule? A vesting schedule is a mechanism by which the ownership of the stock issued to the founders is earned over time (typically four years, as discussed below), rather than immediately.

Vesting 40

Vesting Founder Stock Cofounder 40

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 19, 2017

Most entrepreneurs struggle with many startup founders dilemmas in building their business, and these key dilemmas are probably the biggest source of pain and failure for the entrepreneur lifestyle. Should you start a company solo or find co-founders to help you? The co-founder relationship dilemma.

Hockey Stick 144

Hockey Stick Cofounder Entrepreneur Liquidity Event 144

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.

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Equity Finance Pre-Money Valuation Denver 137

The Next Web

AUGUST 26, 2013

Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Christian Reber, CEO and co-founder of Berlin-based 6Wunderkinder. I’ve seen a few businesses where the first investors took huge pieces of equity for very little money. 15-20% equity for first investors. But never give away shares without vesting. 60-70% for founders.

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Management Cofounder Startup Bootstrapping 120