Mucker Lab

MAY 28, 2020

This post originally appeared in TechCrunch back in 2015, written by our co-founder and managing partner Erik Rannala. These lost startups land higher valuations, have larger teams, outsource more product development and spend more money on customer acquisition than their peers. Hire the wrong people. It’s an art.

Startup 78

Startup Cofounder Burn Rate Technical Review 78

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 11, 2021

Here are five of the most common examples: Failure to document a Founder agreement at the beginning. This oversight can lead to the so-called “forgotten Founder” problem. Trouble with the IRS over Founders stock value. Founders ignore non-compete clauses from former employers.

Cost 363

Cost Non-Compete Accredited Investor Cofounder 363

Hearpreneur

AUGUST 20, 2023

#4- Find the right relationships Photo Credit: Mike Pio Roda “Never leave money on the table” might seem tempting, but it's not always the wisest path for founders and business owners. 5- Hire the experts Photo Credit: Rachel Eigen “You can do it all starting small” — B.S.

Entrepreneur 82

Entrepreneur Cap Table Dividend Cofounder 82

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 20, 2011

They have totally changed the way you run a VC firm, investing heavily in systems & events for their founders that are pushing the boundaries of the way our industry works. The discussion with Howard Morgan starts off by acknowledging Josh Kopelman as a co-founder of First Round Capital. I'm a huge fan of this innovation.

Pre-Money Valuation 284

Pre-Money Valuation Technical Review Cofounder Cram Down 284

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2013

Should I trust my instincts for founders and products or should I be more focused on the market size or business plan? ” As far as “terms” go I’m 100% aligned to have the most vanilla, founder-friendly terms I can. And I listen to the reasons their co-founders quit their well-payed job to join them.

Deal Flow 347

Deal Flow Early Stage Investment Bankers Technical Review 347

The Startup Magazine

JUNE 1, 2023

By Daniel Sokolovksy, Co-Founder and CEO, WARP and Troy Lester, Co-Founder and CRO, WARP The dissolution of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) was more than just a bank collapse, it was a reality check for both startups and the VCs that fund them. As a founder, ask yourself – does your business actually warrant VC funding?

Early Stage 115

Early Stage Los Angeles Silicon Valley Cofounder 115

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2013

Should I trust my instincts for founders and products or should I be more focused on the market size or business plan? ” As far as “terms” go I’m 100% aligned to have the most vanilla, founder-friendly terms I can. And I listen to the reasons their co-founders quit their well-payed job to join them.

Early Stage 361

Early Stage Deal Flow Investment Bankers Technical Review 361

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 10, 2016

Funding challenges and other issues founders face in the early days of starting up were the focus of interviews with the latest guests on Entrepreneurs are Everywhere , my radio show on SiriusXM Channel 111 (airing weekly Thursdays at 1 pm Pacific, 4 pm Eastern). Will Zell , co-founder and CEO of Nikola Labs wireless power company.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Ohio Columbus Entrepreneur 120

Austin Startup

JULY 18, 2018

It leads to better products, better strategy, better marketing, bigger valuations and faster growth. Of our 61 Accelerator startups in 2017, 8% had at least one Black founder, 13% had at least one Female founder, 16% had at least one Asian founder, 21% had at least one LatinX founder.

Technical Review 56

Technical Review San Antonio Houston Software Review 56

Duct Tape Marketing

FEBRUARY 3, 2022

Amanda is the Co-founder at Barney an M&A firm that specializes in the digital marketing space. 16:06] Does hiring an advisor also come with a team of legal and financial advisors? 17:49] Have you ever experienced a transaction where a Founder sold the company to their existing team? [18:35]

Entrepreneur 76

Entrepreneur Technical Review Cofounder Valuation 76

VC Cafe

JULY 4, 2022

The WSJ confirmed what we already know: Q2 venture capital investments declined both in size and in valuation. billion valuation, according to the WSJ, down from $45.6 Remote hires represent the majority in the US in H1 2022. In 2019, about 35% of new hires were based in a different state than the primary company headquarters.

Venture Capital 167

Venture Capital Valuation Private Equity LP 167

Hunter Walker

JANUARY 5, 2014

Meeting new founders while collaborating, recruiting, analyzing, doing whatever it takes, to help our current founders build strong companies. ” That means the founders are currently fundraising and we are at some stage of mutually getting to know each other. Oh, your top priority right now is a marketing hire?

Software Review 102

Software Review Balance Sheet Cofounder Technical Review 102

Steve Blank

MAY 19, 2015

While he kept bringing the conversation back to their big valuation I tried to steer the conversation back to how they were going to deal with: training the influx of new hires – in both culture and job specific tasks. retaining their existing hires who were working for intern-like salaries with little equity.

Technical Review 120

Technical Review Salary Early Stage Software Review 120

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 24, 2017

Why do these founders get to stay around? Because the balance of power has dramatically shifted from investors to founders. VCs competing for unicorn investments have given founders control of the board. Hire a CEO to Go Public. A pre-IPO board usually had two founders, two VCs and one “independent” member.

Founder 274

Founder Technical Review CTO Hire IPO 274

Steve Blank

MARCH 31, 2014

Look at the valuations of companies like Tesla, Illumina, and Twitter. The companies that can show “startup-like” growth rates of 50% plus per year will get stratospheric market valuations. And to keep executing large organizations hire employees with a range of skills and competencies. This never ends well.

Private Equity 329

Private Equity Metrics China Intellectual Property 329

View from Seed

APRIL 30, 2015

What is it, and how should founders think about it? note: We’d like to be extra clear that founders should not take on venture debt if they don’t have 100% visibility into repaying the loan, as banks that need to recoup their loan my force the company or you as the guarantor into liquidation or bankruptcy.

Term Sheet 120

Term Sheet Equity Startup Seed Stage 120

Hunter Walker

AUGUST 7, 2017

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 93

Equity Pre-Money Valuation Option Pool Founder 93

www.entrepreneur.com

SEPTEMBER 22, 2011

When you're getting started, sweat equity is often a critical component of your negotiating leverage with co-founders, early stage employees and others who aren't paid market wages to help you grow your business. Sweat equity is just one component of early-stage valuation. Here are some tools for tackling the challenge.

Sweat Equity 55

Sweat Equity Equity Fractional CTO CTO 55

Hunter Walker

DECEMBER 2, 2014

One of my favorite aspects of the tech industry is that behind the noise, the tweets, the press headlines, there’s a depth of operator-founders who build amazing, lasting and valuable companies. For some reason I have always been turned off by the self-promotion founders do in an effort to get coverage. Intentional strategy?

Entrepreneur 131

Entrepreneur Angel Investor Cofounder Founder 131

Steve Blank

MAY 13, 2010

But startups can shoot themselves in the foot when founders use consultants at the wrong time or in the wrong way. Customer Development is designed so that you the founder(s) gather first hand experience about customer and market needs. Founders get out of the building (physically or virtually) to test their hypotheses against reality.

Founder 226

Founder Cofounder Business Model Customer Development 226

VC Cafe

SEPTEMBER 26, 2022

The past year was a wild ride for startups and founders, giving a whole new meaning to the ”rollercoaster” aspect of being an entrepreneur. So in terms of hiring, get people that can help you build the product faster… anything that minimizes the time between observing a need or a problem, and the execution or the fix for it.”

Founder 187

Founder Startup Valuation Pre-Money Valuation 187

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. One who attracted much attention is David Choe, the graffiti artist hired to paint the company’s first headquarters.

Equity 44

Equity Vesting Cap Table Technical Review 44

Version One Ventures

FEBRUARY 7, 2023

Over the last few years, the start-up market has focused almost exclusively on hyper-growth, quick valuation increases, raising large amounts of capital, and trying to take companies public in a premature way (SPACs). Building a generational company systematically for the long-term has almost completely gone out of fashion.

Cofounder 94

Cofounder Portfolio Valuation Revenue 94

Berkonomics

JANUARY 7, 2021

Two: Co-management. Few entrepreneurs can do it alone, with subordinate hired help and no expert management to share the burdens, skill sets, and efforts involved in growing the enterprise. So, co-management is the second group to share in the bounty upon a liquidity event. Three: Outside investors. Reward for early risk.

Liquidity Event 96

Liquidity Event Pre-Money Valuation Cofounder Initial Public Offering 96

www.avc.com

SEPTEMBER 22, 2011

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. For your first key hires, three, five, maybe as much as ten, you will probably not be able to use any kind of formula. First, a caveat.

Equity 64

Equity Employee CTO Hire Fractional CTO 64

View from Seed

FEBRUARY 19, 2015

This is a guest post from Rob May , a co-founder and CEO of Backupify , which raised $19.5M I called the recruiter running the search and told him I was going to step down and hire a CEO. So, in order to hire a CEO, we have to give someone their first shot at the job.” Hang out with other founders and CEOs.

Founder 120

Founder Startup Cofounder Business Model 120

ReadWriteStart

MARCH 24, 2011

Our co-host for the program was TiE Midwest, based in Chicago. Jobseekers, therefore, need help cleaning up their social media profiles so that objectionable material does not find its way to these background check scenarios, disrupting their chances of getting hired. You can register for the next roundtable here.

Illinois 114

Illinois Entrepreneur Silicon Valley Chicago 114

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. For these examples, let’s say that I’ve got a co-founder and we’re splitting the company 50/50. Cliffs basically allow you to “trial” a hire or partnership without an immediate equity committment.

Vesting 56

Vesting Equity Cofounder Technical Review 56

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 7, 2013

Here are five of the most common examples: Failure to document a Founder agreement at the beginning. This oversight can lead to the so-called “forgotten Founder” problem. Trouble with the IRS over Founders stock value. Founders ignore non-compete clauses from former employers. Marty Zwilling.

Non-Compete 235

Non-Compete Accredited Investor Startup Cofounder 235

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 23, 2017

We make a point of keeping our records updated in the major data-trackers tracking the VC industry, e.g., CB Insights , Crunchbase , Dow Jones , Mattermark , Palico , Preqin , Pitchbook , and ThomsonReuters , since they are a source of data to LPs and to potential co-investors interested in us. . Pitchbot.vc 3) Originate investments.

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Technical Review 60

Austin Startup

DECEMBER 29, 2018

Since I first wrote about the Golden Age in 2014, valuations for tech companies have only increased?—?rather The teams are made up of founders who are dramatically younger. The teams are made up of founders who are dramatically younger. The good thing about young founders is that they don’t know what’s not possible, Wood said.

Cofounder 48

Cofounder Austin Technical Review Advisory Board 48

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 9, 2013

Should you increase your burn rate by adding 2 senior hires who will help you ship faster or sell more but then have less time for fund raising? It’s why I caution people about whom you choose as your co-founder. Or maybe their existence itself will help accelerate fund raising. Who the f**k knows? Or firing people.

Burn Rate 413

Burn Rate Cofounder Dilution Valuation 413

YoungUpstarts

APRIL 18, 2019

by Chris Grey, co-founder and COO of CapLinked. So founders, listen up: Before envisioning your new company as the next headline-making unicorn, consider all the hard work — and luck — it takes to even reach profitability. That way, founders can set reasonable, attainable goals for their team and their company.

Cofounder 127

Cofounder Startup Private Equity Equity 127

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2015

In the old days VCs funded off of a “pre-money” valuation. 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. I can boil it down to how this tension plays out. How much is in the option pool?

Pre-Money Valuation 150

Pre-Money Valuation Option Pool Post-Money Valuation Dilution 150

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. One who attracted much attention is David Choe, the graffiti artist hired to paint the company’s first headquarters.

Equity 28

Equity Vesting Cap Table Technical Review 28

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 10, 2012

Here are five of the most common examples: Failure to document a Founder agreement at the beginning. This oversight can lead to the so-called “forgotten founder” problem. Trouble with the IRS over Founders stock value. Founders ignore non-compete clauses from former employers.

Non-Compete 249

Non-Compete Accredited Investor Cofounder Startup 249

Genuine VC

JULY 9, 2013

Recently, we surveyed our Boston-based NextView portfolio Founder/CEOs asking them about which service provider firms they’ve been using. When we took the poll itself, one founder said: “This is a great idea. We would have loved to have it when we were getting started.”

Early Stage 246

Early Stage Boston Portfolio Silicon Valley 246