The Next Web

JULY 21, 2013

You have an awesome idea and a great co-founder with whom you want to work. This is why vesting is so important. Investing in vesting. In essence, vesting protects founders from each other and aligns incentives so everybody focuses towards a common goal: building a successful company. An example.

Vesting 143

Vesting Founder Chile Equity 143

www.seriesseed.com

DECEMBER 9, 2012

Series Seed Financing Documents Blog. Series Seed Financing Documents. Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Series Seed Financing Documents : 1 Reblog. All of those cost us as much if not more in legal time than the seed round. This is all built into a typical founder stock purchase agreement.

Finance 40

Finance Term Sheet Vesting LLC 40

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

Altgate

JUNE 25, 2012

—————– Dead equity — equity held by employees and founders no longer working at the company — is a large and growing problem. Imagine how much tougher a dead-equity dilemma becomes when co-founders, who tend to hold large equity stakes, are involved. Noam Wasserman on Inc.

Equity 44

Equity Vesting Cap Table Technical Review 44

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. Later, when your venture is trying to close on financing, or even going public, that forgotten partner surfaces, demanding their original share.

Non-Compete 235

Non-Compete Accredited Investor Startup Cofounder 235

Up and Running

DECEMBER 1, 2015

Stock options are issued to employees usually through an Employee Stock Option Plan (ESOP) and include what is called a “vesting period.” The vesting period, often three or four years, frees up a percentage of the options for the employee to purchase the longer they stay at the company. Restricted stock: . If you don’t need to

Equity 60

Equity Employee Stock Options Vesting 60

Hunter Walker

AUGUST 24, 2014

The vast majority of my future savings was (a) not vested yet and (b) tied to hope for future stock grants I’d earn. It’s for reasons like these that I support getting startup founders some liquidity during their company’s first few years, perhaps as early as Series A financing when appropriate.

Founder 108

Founder San Francisco Liquidity Event LP 108

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

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

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. Later, when your venture is trying to close on financing, or even going public, that forgotten partner surfaces, demanding their original share.

Non-Compete 249

Non-Compete Accredited Investor Cofounder Startup 249

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 18, 2014

It’s like we need a finance 101 course for entrepreneurs. In finance they call it “terminal value” but the truth is the price is as arbitrary at your A round as it is at your seed round. I know how to structure around that to protect the founders from getting screwed on a multiple liquidation preference.

Venture Capital 417

Venture Capital Liquidation Preference Valuation Term Sheet 417

Altgate

AUGUST 25, 2012

—————– Dead equity — equity held by employees and founders no longer working at the company — is a large and growing problem. Imagine how much tougher a dead-equity dilemma becomes when co-founders, who tend to hold large equity stakes, are involved. Noam Wasserman on Inc.

Equity 28

Equity Vesting Cap Table Technical Review 28

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 2, 2011

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. Early co-founders often drop out of the picture due to disagreements, and you forget about them, but they don’t forget about the verbal promises you made.

Non-Compete 246

Non-Compete Accredited Investor Entrepreneur Cofounder 246

www.founderinstitute.com

MARCH 2, 2010

He has been actively involved in merger, acquisition and disposition transactions with a combined value of over $1 billion, and financing/investment transactions and securities offerings worth over $600 million. Single trigger vesting , which allows founders to vest all of their equity and make money in an exit.

Term Sheet 40

Term Sheet Liquidation Preference Vesting San Diego 40

techcrunch.com

SEPTEMBER 6, 2012

As CEO and co-founder Naval Ravikant tells me, when he and co-founder Babak Nivi started VentureHacks a few years ago, their goal was to educate companies on how to negotiate venture term sheets. In fact, Wilson Sonsini will close financings for startups using Docs for their seed rounds but you must become a client of the firms.

Term Sheet 70

Term Sheet San Francisco Technical Review Seed Stage 70

Austin Startup

AUGUST 20, 2017

Set any vesting schedules and expiration dates on roughly similar terms, if for no other reason just so you can track all of them correctly. Messy cap tables can come back to haunt you when you do a financing or sell the company. Kalanick, former investor BFF turned highly disappointed by founder behavior.

Technical Review 48

Technical Review Software Review Cap Table Securities and Exchange Commission 48

www.inc.com

SEPTEMBER 24, 2011

Finance | Tuesdays. Financing a Small Business. Financing A Small Business. Personal Finance. Before Roving Software could receive its first round of financing from professional investors, in early 1999, he had to put all the stock arrangements in writing. Start-up | Mondays. Technology | Thursdays. Franchises.

Fractional CTO 40

Fractional CTO Equity Iowa Technical Cofounder 40

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 30, 2010

Let me preface by saying I obviously have a vested interest in being wrong about tough times ahead but as the old saying goes, “hope for best, plan for the worst.”. Let me preface by saying I obviously have a vested interest in being wrong about tough times ahead but as the old saying goes, “hope for best, plan for the worst.”.

Entrepreneur 298

Entrepreneur Technical Review Balance Sheet Government 298

www.quora.com

SEPTEMBER 22, 2011

Type to Add and Search Questions; Search Topics and People Startups Startup Compensation Entrepreneurship Compensation Stock Options Major Internet Companies Silicon Valley Why is there such a large founder to early employee equity drop-off? The real question here is: why is it fair for founders to get so much more?

Equity 40

Equity Employee Founder Cofounder 40

David Teten

DECEMBER 3, 2019

Tim Friedman, Founder, PE Stack , said, “If I could offer one piece of advice to today’s managers, it would be to take the time to understand the demands of the modern institutional LP. Russell Rothstein, Founder and CEO, IT Central Station , a product review site, said, “We see VCs on our site very often. 3) Raise capital.

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Software Review Analytics Private Equity 78

Up and Running

MAY 3, 2012

In the business plans that I review, I often come across glaring gaps that are simply insurmountable; e.g. plans to launch new alcoholic beverages in the UK without understanding the capital costs or the power of distribution in that industry. The list goes on. To be clear, I’m not anti-entrepreneurship.

Entrepreneur 82

Entrepreneur Technical Review Silicon Valley Lean 82

www.chubbybrain.com

SEPTEMBER 28, 2011

created a vastly higher cost structure; I had 80 people mostly on base salaries under $100,000 and was bringing in revenue at the rate of $20 million annually. Contributing to the high cost structure was the new culture of working 9-5 Monday through Friday. Go vest yourself. deprecated the old feature-complete product (ACS 3.4)

Software Review 79

Software Review Startup Technical Review Vesting 79

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). Here are the questions I like to see founders ask potential advisors; 1. Vesting Schedules. Advisors typically ask to vest in equal installments over 48 months. Typically these folks get between .01-.25%

Equity 98

Equity Vesting Cap Table Common Stock 98

Tim Keane

JANUARY 12, 2010

For angel groups, the distinction between groups and VCs on this issue is dwindling, especially as angel groups do bigger rounds of financing.   Note that this applies only to earl stage Series A-type equity financings and assumes no cash dividends are paid to investors.   First , dividends.   Why is this fair?

Term Sheet 68

Term Sheet Valuation Dividend Liquidation Preference 68

www.copelandfirm.com

OCTOBER 21, 2010

Home About Fee Arrangements Location Referrals Testimonials Business Law HUB Certification Mergers & Acquisitions Startup Advice Intellectual Property Copyrights Trademarks Securities Law Debt and Bridge Financing Series A Startup Law Entity Formation Corporation LLC Series LLC RSS Founders Shares: How do you split them up?

Intellectual Property 40

Intellectual Property Founder Vesting Bridge Financing 40

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 19, 2010

Here are some examples: Failure to document a founder agreement at the beginning. This shortcut can lead to the so-called “forgotten founder” problem. Early co-founders often drop out of the picture due to disagreements, and you forget about them, but they don’t forget about the verbal promises you made. Marty Zwilling.

Non-Compete 125

Non-Compete Accredited Investor Startup Cofounder 125

www.paulgraham.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

Single Founder Have you ever noticed how few successful startups were founded byjust one person? Even companies you think of as having one founder,like Oracle, usually turn out to have more. Whats wrong with having one founder? It probably means the founder couldnt talk anyof his friends into starting the company with him.

Startup 108

Startup Software Review Hiring Detroit 108

Gust

SEPTEMBER 17, 2014

It’s like we need a finance 101 course for entrepreneurs. In finance they call it “terminal value” but the truth is the price is as arbitrary at your A round as it is at your seed round. I know how to structure around that to protect the founders from getting screwed on a multiple liquidation preference. There were no metrics.

Liquidation Preference 153

Liquidation Preference Valuation Term Sheet Stock 153

Software By Rob

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

I was surprised by this, as I thought Seth was going to discuss another option I’ve seen used with great success: customer financing. Not only are you getting financing with little risk, but with customer financing you have someone in the industry with a vested interest in your product succeeding.

Equity 42

Equity Software Review RSS Widget 42

The Next Web

DECEMBER 29, 2013

Founders, executives and decision makers don’t have time to consistently create quality content and then properly distribute it. Andrew Schrage , Money Crashers Personal Finance. . Andrew Vest , Preferling. . Danny Wong , Blank Label. . Content Creator. John Hall , Influence & Co. . Instagram Consultant. Content Hacker.

Social Media 164

Social Media Vesting Distribution 164

Gust

DECEMBER 8, 2011

Likewise, founders can benefit from understanding basic characteristics of the overall legal structure, formation and governance documents, rights and responsibilities of team members, etc. Determine who will serve on the Board of Directors and in executive officer positions (usually founders). Newco, Inc.”)

Intellectual Property 139

Intellectual Property Non-disclosure Agreement Delaware Stock 139

venturehacks.com

MARCH 21, 2008

The options typically vest monthly over 1-2 years with 100% single-trigger acceleration and no cliff. Although the advisor is on a vesting schedule, you should expect them to add most of their value up-front—that’s normal. The opportunity cost is probably too high. Does this stake need to have vesting schedule?

Advisory Board 44

Advisory Board Cap Table Vesting Equity 44

Professor VC

OCTOBER 11, 2010

Co-founder Dustin Moscovitz is referred to as a programmer, but he is actually an operations guy. Several weeks after Zuckerberg and the team move to Palo Alto for the summer, co-founder Eduardo Saverin finally pays a visit. Also, be sure to include vesting for all founders. October 18, 2010 2:41 PM. Blake Southwood.

Social Network 28

Social Network Networking Software Review San Jose 28

ithacaVC

JUNE 20, 2011

Cost is the overriding issue for startups when it comes to properly engaging a lawyer. My general retort on this point is this: expect to incur real lawyer costs and get over it. Setting up a legal entity that will have multiple owners from inception (like 2 or more founders) requires good lawyer input.

Stock Options 58

Stock Options Vesting Subscription Agreement Founder Vesting 58

www.payne.org

SEPTEMBER 22, 2011

4 Vesting. 6 Founders / Restricted Stock. UPDATE: If youre a founder or near-founder, your equity terms are likely defined by the funding terms negotiated with the investors. You usually dont get all of your stock up front; it vests over a period of time, starting from your first day at work. From Payne.org Wiki.

Equity 56

Equity Employee Vesting Preferred Stock 56

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 21, 2010

If I ever say anything less than positive, I have no vested interests in doing so. In addition to the P2P deals covered below, on the show we also talked about some of my favorite financing startups ( Wonga in the UK run by Errol Damelin , who is a superstar) and Affordit.com run by serial (and I mean serial!) What I like? Big market.

Venture Capital 265

Venture Capital Social Network Angel Investor Chad 265

K9 Ventures

JULY 22, 2009

This has several advantages: 1) If you are going to be bringing on co-founders or employees, the fact that the company has already been incorporated, and is official, can have an impact on how the equity split gets portioned out. 5) Incorporating forces you to start maintaining the books (or so I hope!)

Due Diligence 48

Due Diligence Vesting Valuation Cofounder 48