Austin Startup

DECEMBER 9, 2019

Sputnik ATX Three rules to avoid getting scammed by advisors As an early stage VC, one of the saddest things I observe from meetings with founders is the toxic and pervasive influence of what I call the start-up industrial complex (the SIC). Founders, we love you and want to see you succeed. This is a bad deal for you, if you take it.

Vesting 72

Vesting Early Stage Seed Capital Equity 72

SoCal CTO

JANUARY 18, 2011

I have been working full time with two founders for about 10 months on full time basis. During that time one of the founders had mentioned that for the initial agreed time (3 months, equivalent dollars could be translated to 2% of equity but no agreement was reached at that time). What are the terms the founders got in the deal?

CTO 167

CTO CTO Hire Equity Vesting 167

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 20, 2019

One of the things that founders have the most angst about is whom they should have on their board and at what stage of the business. Why you should set up a board at the seed round of funding I know these days with SAFE documents and rolling convertible notes many founders prefer not to set up a board early on.

Venture Capital 236

Venture Capital Startup Angel Investor Silicon Valley 236

SoCal CTO

JANUARY 18, 2011

I have been working full time with two founders for about 10 months on full time basis. During that time one of the founders had mentioned that for the initial agreed time (3 months, equivalent dollars could be translated to 2% of equity but no agreement was reached at that time). What are the terms the founders got in the deal?

CTO 150

CTO CTO Hire Equity Vesting 150

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 17, 2009

This is part of my ongoing series “Pitching a VC“ There’s a great meme developing this morning on the need to simplify funding terms and documents. The meme was kicked off by Chris Dixon with this post saying that term sheets need to be simplified and align investor / founder interests.

Founder Vesting 252

Founder Vesting Vesting Founder Term Sheet 252

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.

Vesting 89

Vesting Software Review IP Intellectual Property 89

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

NZ Entrepreneur

SEPTEMBER 29, 2021

Startup founders are our ambitious problem solvers. Startup founders are driven to solve problems and make a difference – many want to literally change the world. Sometimes that will include pivoting the company, sometimes that will see the chair step in to act as CEO so the founder can fully recharge. Risk and reward.

Technical Review 88

Technical Review Software Review New Zealand Due Diligence 88

NZ Entrepreneur

MAY 27, 2019

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. In my opinion, founders or early stage companies should only have a team of two or three people. In my opinion, founders or early stage companies should only have a team of two or three people.

Technical Cofounder 64

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Technical Review Software Review 64

Steve Blank

JUNE 15, 2010

So if you’re the founder of a startup, you may want to consider who you take money from. Is Your VC Founder Friendly? Do they “get&# Customer Development ? How many of their founders are still with their company? How many of their founders are still with their company? Do They Get Customer Development?

Founder 231

Founder Vesting Later Stage Early Stage 231

www.informationarbitrage.com

FEBRUARY 24, 2010

Main February 23, 2010 Advice for CTO Founders: Dont Let Business Kill the Business Founding a technology company is an amazing thing. Too often, however, I have found CTO / Founders paired with business people who not only don't add value, but frequently detract from the value of the business. So my advice to CTO / Founders?

CTO Hire 40

CTO Hire Founder Cap Table Vesting 40

SoCal CTO

MARCH 1, 2007

skip to main | skip to sidebar SoCal CTO Thursday, March 1, 2007 Entreprenuer Network Great post by Ben Kuo - The Importance of the “Network&# to Entrepreneurs - the informal connections between people in the technology industry here who have a vested interest in helping entrepreneurs take their companies to the next level.

Technical Cofounder 150

Technical Cofounder Networking Southern California Los Angeles 150

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 18, 2015

And even this can’t stop their employees from fleeing after two years of vesting to move on to the next hot startup. Everyone is a rock star developers, every company is crushing it and when they’re not crushing it they’re killing it. Do fewer business development deals but make the ones you do have more impact.

Software Review 150

Software Review Turkey Portfolio Syndicate 150

techcrunch.com

JUNE 22, 2012

This is where a lot of founders get stuck. Not to mention, once the founder and advisor have nominally agreed to a relationship, law firms enter the mix and seed the new advisor with a mountain of paperwork — legal agreements, options agreements — documents stuffed with legalese and binding statements.

Equity 94

Equity San Francisco Startup Silicon Valley 94

Andrew Payne

SEPTEMBER 9, 2017

If an early very experienced developer has 1%, and a less senior dev has 0.5%, those become two reference points for the next dev hire. But, how should founders divide things up in the very beginning , where none of these internal reference points exist? And, how can founders talk about percentages before any funding?

Equity 71

Equity Founder Vesting Dilution 71

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

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

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. A pre-IPO board usually had two founders, two VCs and one “independent” member. Technology Cycles Measured in Years.

Founder 245

Founder Technical Review CTO Hire IPO 245

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

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 27, 2012

A Strong Pool of Tech Founders – Stating the obvious. But I would point out that these days there are really talented tech developers & teams everywhere. And they have a vested interest in this success. Think Fred Wilson, Tony Hsieh or Brad Feld. You can read Brad’s views of how to do it in his book.

Community 378

Community San Diego Silicon Valley Los Angeles 378

The Startup Magazine

JULY 19, 2020

Many law firms simply use the last name of their founder, or combine multiple names together. Competition can be tough among law firms, so it’s important to hire a developer to build you a website that stands out from the crowd. Ideally, senior staff will have experience in the niche of DUI law or a vested interest in practicing it.

Vesting 149

Vesting Reputation Hiring Community 149

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. Today, in steps 10-12 I want to discuss with you raising your first round of money, hiring to develop and maintain your company culture, as well as defining your role in the management of your startup. 60-70% for founders.

Management 120

Management Cofounder Startup Bootstrapping 120

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

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 29, 2009

Because they wouldn’t have the enormous amounts of profits that they’ve been able to sink back into research & development. A healthy eco-system of application developers is required for any software or Internet company to be massively successful. And then I saw many people developing Twitter spam filters.

Technical Review 286

Technical Review Advertising Early Stage Internet 286

Tim Keane

DECEMBER 14, 2009

  Angels can allow founders to partially cash out if they choose to.    Paul goes on to develop the story of "vanilla" documents prepared by the angel's attorney.    Groups tend to use more standard terms and -- more important -- develop an understanding of what they really do want.

Burn Rate 60

Burn Rate Angel Groups Seed Stage Startup 60

Reid Hoffman

DECEMBER 10, 2020

These are really good founders and I think this is an interesting space.” Further, when additional people kept mentioning Airbnb to me and praising the founders, I should have asked myself how a smart, capable person would refine the idea.). Those two minutes showed me that Airbnb’s founders wanted to play in the big leagues.

Hosting 69

Hosting Hockey Stick IPO Silicon Valley 69

YoungUpstarts

AUGUST 23, 2013

Play your cards closer to the vest. Ask yourself which is more important to you: throwing your two cents in or maintaining a decent relationship? And be especially careful on Facebook and Twitter because there are many more deeply held beliefs to consider. Failure to exercise caution around sensitive topics can lead to a relational explosion.

Turkey 145

Turkey Vesting Conversion Leadership 145

Up and Running

JULY 11, 2017

Often, executing a flank attack involves developing new technology. Whether you’re considering launching a new business or looking to develop a new product in an established company, you may have a vision of a new technology will that expose a vulnerable flank in an entire industry or against key competitors.

Technical Review 80

Technical Review Development Team Review Differentiation Leadership 80

www.avc.com

SEPTEMBER 22, 2011

To be clear, these are hires we are talking about, not co-founders. Co-founders are an entirely different discussion and I am not talking about them in this post. We have developed a formula that we like to use for this purpose. So a grant with a value of $125k could be worth $400k to $600k over the time period it vests.

Equity 64

Equity Employee CTO Hire Fractional CTO 64

Hunter Walker

FEBRUARY 20, 2021

Great founders are always recruiting. A sales and marketing tactic as much (or even more) than a customer development one, try setting up a Customer Council Advisory Board. Remember, the standard agreements are two years in length, have a 3–6 month vesting cliff (with monthly thereafter) and preserve right of either party to terminate.

Advisory Board 150

Advisory Board Equity Vesting Startup 150

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. Kalanick, former investor BFF turned highly disappointed by founder behavior. Usually the founders duke it out among themselves as to titles and responsibilities and relative shareholdings.

Technical Review 48

Technical Review Software Review Cap Table Securities and Exchange Commission 48

Scalable Startup

OCTOBER 9, 2014

Talking to CEO and CTO about role as co-founder/COO. > Too many startups now devalue anyone who is not a developer. Vesting? > Often this is a “story” or a hypothetical. First 6 mos are unpaid, they invested 50,000 each so far, and I won’t be required to invest anything but time. Are you quitting a job?

Cofounder 20

Cofounder Technical Cofounder Equity Vesting 20

Gust

AUGUST 30, 2012

Size, Growth, Concentration, Geography, Demographics, Competition, Channels, Regulatory Environment, Technological Developments, Adjacent Markets, Characteristics of the Deal.

Founder Vesting 144

Founder Vesting Option Pool Exit Strategy Vesting 144

David Teten

OCTOBER 1, 2015

Should you co-found your company with a software development shop? I’ve talked with a number of software development shops who are eager to get into the business of cofounding companies, i.e., getting product revenue and equity instead of just consulting revenue. What are the terms of their relationship with the founder?

Software Developers 60

Software Developers Software Development Software Review Technical Cofounder 60

blog.aparttimecto.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

Unless you’re fortunate to have one or more technical founders, you’ll quickly be faced with this simple question: Do we hack out a prototype somehow, find a developer or outsource the development? Create the prototype yourself Pros: Cheap - this only takes up the time of your and your founders.

CTO Hire 40

CTO Hire Fractional CTO Equity Vesting 40

www.seriesseed.com

DECEMBER 9, 2012

This is all built into a typical founder stock purchase agreement. Acton: I can't prove the assertion, but it's a judgment that I've developed after years of doing this work and is seconded by my launch partners all of whom are experienced investors. This is great.simplified funding/founders docs out of the box.

Finance 40

Finance Term Sheet Vesting LLC 40

View from Seed

APRIL 11, 2016

With texting and SMS and chat, for instance, there’s less vested interest in the conversation and how the other person feels. At a past firm, I saw a founder who was 10 years too early thinking about the UI in the car, too, so this is not an entirely new discussion. It can invite a lot of bad behavior.

Technical Review 120

Technical Review Technology Audio Startup 120