Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 17, 2011

A CEO who has “been there and done that” is traction, especially if teamed with a financial lead (CFO) and a product lead (CTO). It doesn’t prove your business model of pricing, distribution, and support. If you are strong enough to surround yourself with a strong team, that’s great progress toward success. Show personal investment.

Intellectual Property 253

Intellectual Property Sweat Equity CTO Hire Fractional CTO 253

David Cohen

JANUARY 4, 2012

Ten accepted companies will receive an equity investment of $20K in exchange for six percent common equity. Microsoft may also collaborate with certain companies to publish their products through Microsoft distribution channels. Eran Egozy, Founder and CTO, Harmonix. Jeff Powers, Founder, Occipital.

Intellectual Property 76

Intellectual Property Seattle Equity Programming 76

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 22, 2010

A CEO who has “been there and done that” is traction, especially if teamed with a financial lead (CIO) and a product lead (CTO). It doesn’t prove your business model of pricing, distribution, and support. If you are strong enough to surround yourself with a strong team, that’s great progress toward success. Show personal investment.

Intellectual Property 222

Intellectual Property Sweat Equity CTO Hire Fractional CTO 222

Agile VC

APRIL 17, 2011

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. Distribution revenue is CPC and CPA. . Kayak generates both distribution (i.e. Last week ZipCar began trading and has a market cap of about $1 billion.

Pre-Money Valuation 113

Pre-Money Valuation Liquidation Preference Dividend Common Stock 113

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 15, 2010

Can you please expand on your post about distributed teams? I spoke about the need of the CEO, CTO and head of Products to be in the same location. It was a verbal discussion on my post on distributed teams. - Yes, that was the value that we actually returned as opposed to the value of Ulta. Great exit. -

Southern California 210

Southern California Venture Capital Seed Stage Angel Investor 210

thinkspace.com

SEPTEMBER 7, 2012

Office Space. Virtual Office. How to Divide Equity to Startup Founders, Advisors, and Employees. The part that I’d like to zero in on is when you’ve got a high growth company what are some of the best practices out there to distribute equity to the founders, advisors, and employees? Equity for Founders.

Equity 62

Equity Employee Founder CTO Hire 62

SoCal CTO

OCTOBER 5, 2010

Great content again in September that meets at the intersection of startups, technology, product and being a Startup CTO. previously explained that it usually requires some equity, but here is some more step by step practical advice. CompStudy 2008 Report on Equity and Cash Compensation at Technology Startups.

Technology 191

Technology Product San Francisco CTO Hire 191

Business Plan Blog

OCTOBER 4, 2013

While some investors will be willing to help you build your team, they will not be willing to invest in your startup if you are not willing to distribute responsibility and bring on diversified expertise. Be sure to leave plenty of equity for investors. Never confuse the number of years worked with experience.

Part-Time VPE 79

Part-Time VPE Fractional VPE Cofounder CTO Hire 79

rapidrollout.wordpress.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

Web Startup Lessons Advice from a CTO and Entrepreneur Home About Finding a Technical Partner for Your Startup Today I received an inquiry from a student at an Ivy League university who wants to launch a web startup. How can I go about looking for a (very) good programmer willing to do this as sweat equity? So you see my dilemma.

Technical Review 40

Technical Review Fractional CTO Partner CTO Hire 40

Gust

OCTOBER 20, 2011

Individual accredited investors in typical angel deals put personal capital at risk for an equity share of growth-oriented, start-up companies. For this round of investment, the angels collectively purchase 20-40% of the equity of the company and are seeking a return on investment of 20-30X in a period of five to eight years.

Valuation 146

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Intellectual Property Technical Review 146

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

If you’re working closely with partners who are helping you distribute your product, it’s especially important to make sure they understand who you are, how you speak, and who you serve. You might also be giving investors too much equity early on, as the risk is extremely high for them in the beginning stages of growing a SaaS company.”.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

www.metamorphblog.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

Here’s how the pitch sounds from the engineer’s perspective: ‘For ten whole percent of equity, you will slave away to build a prototype out of my shitty idea, not have any say in the decision-making process…and oh yeah, you could be fired at any point.’ Date for a bit, then split the equity. Learned a lot.

Founder 51

Founder Startup Cofounder Vesting 51

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 8, 2010

One of the first tough decisions that startup founders have to make is how to allocate or split the equity among co-founders. Another common “failure to start” situation I see is one where the “idea person” insists that the idea is 90% of the value (and 90% of the equity). Building a product doesn’t get it distributed and sold.

Equity 228

Equity Intellectual Property Cofounder CTO Hire 228

www.chubbybrain.com

SEPTEMBER 28, 2011

Don’t exacerbate the issue by needing to figure out how to deal with large equity deadweight on your hands (investors won’t like that the #2 stakeholder is absent, even estranged, from your company). So, the best way of dealing with this issue is to take a long, long vesting period for all major sweat equity founders.”.

Cofounder 89

Cofounder Startup Technical Cofounder CTO Hire 89

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 23, 2012

One of the first tough decisions that startup founders have to make is how to allocate or split the equity among co-founders. Another common “failure to start” situation I see is one where the “idea person” insists that the idea is 90% of the value (and 90% of the equity). Building a product doesn’t get it distributed and sold.

Intellectual Property 252

Intellectual Property Equity Cofounder CTO Hire 252

Austin Startup

MARCH 7, 2018

SXSW Panel: Elevating Blacks in Tech Rodney Sampson (@rodneysampson) | Twitter Mark Mathewson Managing VP & CTO Small Business & Canada Technology Capital One Mark is immensely passionate about diversity, especially in the technology industry. As the third U.S.

Technical Cofounder 48

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Fractional CTO CTO 48

www.quora.com

JANUARY 16, 2011

Someone who is egotistical enough to call themselves a rockstar, yet humble enough not to want 99% of the equity? Developer, engineer, CTO, or technical co-founder? Just go to a meetup or post an ad promising equity. " => Where can I find someone to do my work for me for free for a year of their life? Rockstar v.

Developer 42

Developer Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder 42

techcrunch.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

I too am looking for someone to work with that knows the manufacturing and distribution end of a solid product. This resulted in a recapitilization of the equity away from 33% each (in my favor) and then the ultimate dismissal of one of the co-founders prior to the A-round. Twitter is an excellent distribution channel for us. (B)

Technical Review 84

Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Software Review 84

www.quora.com

JANUARY 16, 2011

You can argue that the DNA created by Microsoft's over emphasis on distribution (Steve) and development (Bill), has ultimately cost it $50bn or more in lost revenue, market share and market capitalization. Developers have worn the crown for the last 30 or more years in the technology industry - rightly. The former focussed on biz.

Technical Review 51

Technical Review Startup CTO Hire Cofounder 51

sivers.org

JUNE 25, 2010

Im a UX and front end designer bootstrapping my own products with pure sweat equity at night but always looking for someone else to partner with(engineer/programmer)to bring these ideas life. Dont make cheap skate equity offers, with programmer getting equity share of first employee and salary of founder(nothing or next to nothing).

CTO Hire 84

CTO Hire Hiring Software Review Technical Review 84