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Equity for Early Employees in Early Stage Startups

SoCal CTO

I was asked by a reader how much equity he should give out to early employees and to service providers in a very early stage startup. Founders vs. Early Employees To help with this discussion, let me start with a definition of "early employee." I'll get to service providers in a later post.

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5 Equity Distribution Parameters For Key Contributors

Startup Professionals Musings

Because these considerations can be quite complex, very emotional, and have long-term implications, smart entrepreneurs don’t hesitate to get some legal advice at this early stage, in drawing up an agreement document to be signed by each of the cofounders. The CFO may have a major financial background, but might be a minority owner.

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5 Keys To Negotiating Your Fair Share Of Any Startup

Startup Professionals Musings

Because these considerations can be quite complex, very emotional, and have long-term implications, smart entrepreneurs don’t hesitate to get some legal advice at this early stage, in drawing up an agreement document to be signed by each of the co-founders. The CFO may have a major financial background, but might be a minority owner.

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How To Prevent Gaps in An Innovative Startup Strategy

Startup Professionals Musings

In fact, it’s all about the “focus” required to get early stage technology products across the deadly chasm from early adopters to mainstream customers. It takes focus to resist adding a long list of features that seem to make the opportunity larger, but dilute to focus of both you and potential customers.

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What Does the Post Crash VC Market Look Like?

Both Sides of the Table

Median valuations for early-stage valuations tripled from around $20m pre-money valuations to $60m with plenty of deals being prices above $100m. When you look at how much median valuations were driven up in the past 5 years alone it’s bananas. But here’s the magic few people ever talk about … We’ve created more than $1.5

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Which Fundraising Round Should You Skip?

View from Seed

The reality is that if a founder raised every one of these rounds, and lead investors always got their “target” ownership, the level of dilution would be ridiculous. No good investor would want the founder/CEO of a company to have insufficient ownership by the series A, and every founder I know is sensitive to taking too much dilution.

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Why LP’s Passed on Seed Funds 10 Years Ago (And What’s Happened Since)

View from Seed

It turns out capital is not a weapon, especially in the early stages of building a business, and even experienced founders who can raise huge sums often realize this and right-size their asks. And yes, a seed fund may have a tougher time holding on to their ownership down the road, and thus get diluted down. But guess what?

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