Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 5, 2010

By 2005 I had moved back to the US and we started hiring US employees (The first two employees we hired had both grown up in India! So BuildOnline kept the employees on their books and they did subcontracting work for our company, Koral. Irony, hey?). In 2006 we sold the company to a French services company.

Technical Review 282

Technical Review Canada Green South Carolina 282

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 1, 2010

I never built a Google-sized business but I did build an organization from scratch that grew to 120 employees in 5 countries before we sold it. As your organization grows and you hire senior staff where you are no longer managing every employee directly the issue of how to manage people that are not your “direct&# reports arises.

CTO Hire 308

CTO Hire Management Technical Review Part-Time VPE 308

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

So the efforts by Andersen Consulting amounted to “rolling out the red carpet when the employee was on the way out the door.&# Many employees feel that they aren’t listened too, aren’t challenged or aren’t recognized for their hard work. You develop a cynicism that the future will be better.

San Francisco 322

San Francisco South Africa CTO Hire Fractional CTO 322

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 6, 2016

I have experienced many first-time entrepreneurs with too much hubris if fund-raising came easily and press was fawning and employees joined in droves and customer adoption has been rapid. You also ran the risk that if you hired employees quickly and then demand wasn’t as strong as expected it was incredibility hard to fire people.

South Korea 261

South Korea Silicon Valley Los Angeles Japan 261

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2017

Sam also had a vision as early as 2012 about how MakeSpace would be a large employer of middle-income jobs: The company would hire employees rather than just have contractors and he would lead the effort to ensure they had opportunities for growth and benefits for their families.

Operations 286

Operations New York City Technical Review Startup 286

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 29, 2010

Mark Jeffrey - Q: “Is it more traditional to do your ESOP (employee stock option plan) before or after your angel or Series A funding?&# I talked about the need to have a restricted stock plan for your earliest employees. You’re not screwing me – you’re screwing your fellow employees.

Venture Capital 282

Venture Capital Term Sheet Valuation Stock Options 282

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 21, 2019

If you want to have a 30-minute debate on whether your company should spend $12,000 on a coffee machine for employees then ask your board and I promise every member will have an opinion. Boards will comment on anything you put in front of them.

Management 234

Management Startup Dividend Early Stage 234

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 8, 2010

Psychologist as the CEO of Employees – Everybody wants to work somewhere “that is not political&# but that place only exists in a mythical utopian island. One of the most common “chief psychologist&# asks of me as the CEO was to resolve an inter-personal conflict with another employee.

Ireland 319

Ireland Sales Bankruptcy Germany 319

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 1, 2020

The inevitable decisions may mean you shed employees, suppliers, offices, bonuses, contractors?—?you In times like these your friends, family, associates, colleagues, employees and business partners need you more than ever. If your head isn’t spinning you haven’t fully grasped the severity of the situation. you name it.

Balance Sheet 215

Balance Sheet Demand Government Employee 215

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 18, 2015

Of course your friend’s company raised $50 million and offers it’s employees free kombucha and desk massages. And even this can’t stop their employees from fleeing after two years of vesting to move on to the next hot startup. For investors life is no different. You don’t need to be hot.

Software Review 150

Software Review Turkey Portfolio Syndicate 150

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 6, 2014

Whether you’re considering hiring a new employee or as an investor whether you’re looking to do a background check on the founders of a company. and in fairness to the employee (why call a bunch of people and then not hire him – leading others to wonder why he didn’t get the job?). Reference calls.

Technical Review 302

Technical Review Hiring Later Stage Employee 302

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 22, 2012

” And many more examples of employees launching careers including several employees at Google, Microsoft, Oracle, Salesforce.com and elsewhere. Tim Barker is the CPO of DataSift (and heading European marketing for Salesforce.com). I’m pretty sure all of these guys feel that they worked at a “startup.”

Silicon Valley 390

Silicon Valley Venture Capital Startup Technical Review 390

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 2, 2015

And it turns out that employee reviews matter. Didn’t have employees sign non-solicitation agreements? Didn’t have employees sign non-solicitation agreements? Have an employee trying to push you to do a 1099 vs. a W2 … is that good or bad? Yet being a buttoned up company requires all this. Shame on you.

Operations 150

Operations Metrics Early Stage Non-Compete 150

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 10, 2021

is changing the way companies, real estate leaders and employees think about and measure these major assets. And today, as the company announces their latest funding round of $125M at a $1B+ valuation , I’m still thrilled to back Density as they are growing massively with customers like Uber, Shopify, Delta, and Cisco, among many others.

Valuation 249

Valuation Conversion Employee Customer 249

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 25, 2009

Azhar researched all possible locations for our Indian office based on: ease of travel, cost of employees, technical abundance, annual staff attrition rates, local infrastructure and safety for our UK employees who would spend a lot of time down there setting things up.

Pakistan 297

Pakistan India Technical Review Software Review 297

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 6, 2013

But not anal if one founder who shares equity graciously with early employees who are treated as “co-founders” My idea startup team is heaving on tech personnel but also has strong product management. I don’t think VCs care as much about co-founders & economics as people think.

Cofounder 388

Cofounder Early Stage Startup Silicon Valley 388

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 6, 2014

By now you have many smart people around your board but probably people who don’t totally understand the nuances of your employees, customers, sales reps, marketing messages, technology challenges, competitors and strategic choices. Defections of large swaths of talented employees due to low morale. We realized we needed help.

Technical Review 325

Technical Review Early Stage Software Review Los Angeles 325

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 26, 2015

If you hire somebody early in your startup who is naturally cautious and uneasy with risk – you’re going to have an employee who is constantly one foot out the door because he can’t handle the uncertainties of startup life. Over time I began to think more about the scorpion.

Oauth 150

Oauth Software Review Technical Review IPO 150

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 15, 2017

In short the board is there to represent the interest of all shareholders (big & small) of the company and all other stakeholders (debt, creditors, employees, etc.). Yesterday I wrote a blog post about what the role of a board actually is. Some boards are highly functional, many are not.

Early Stage 212

Early Stage Technical Review Email Valuation 212

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 26, 2011

Delaying the inevitable is not going to make things smoother with your investors, biz dev partners, customers or employees. To be clear – I’m not advocating creating a slash-and-burn employee culture where there is a constant revolving door. Your “Blink” instincts are right. You won’t patch things up. You free up much needed budget.

Hiring 335

Hiring Technical Review Startup Framework 335

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2013

I loved the entire journey – good and bad – and the employees and customers. “ I’d rather be solving intellectual challenges and figuring out key strategies, not debating which employees should get a promotion, or configuring project timelines.” I had stayed for 6 years. ” So Reid set out to hire a CEO.

Technical Review 303

Technical Review Cofounder Analytics Founder 303

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 30, 2011

when is the right time to hire your first sales employee? The video link is here and quick time-coded show notes at the end of the post in case you want to jump ahead to just one section. But the ground we covered was awesome for anybody wanting to know more about sales. When & Whom should you hire? junior vs. senior?

Software Review 300

Software Review Sales Due Diligence Startup 300

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 27, 2013

Death because just 3 extra non-performing employees in a company of 15 can either accelerate cash out date or can dramatically lower your productivity. I have sat through scores of board meetings in the past year and in at least 25% of them the topic of a senior employee we hired that hasn’t worked out comes up.

Hiring 338

Hiring Employee Leadership Revenue 338

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 17, 2011

But within this “minimum acceptable talent level” you still have a wide variance of “employee types.” They’re having private lunches with other employees talking about how they’ve lost faith in your vision. This is assuming a raw minimum of MIPS in the candidate. Let’s be honest – some uber talented people are PITAs. I never hire them.

Hiring 399

Hiring Startup Global Revenue 399

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 27, 2011

They got a bigger office space so their employees would feel comfortable and they could improve employee retention. They hired a biz dev team to work on deals where their product could be embedded in other people’s products as a way to increase customer demand. Let’s look at years 3-5 of the two companies.

Startup 418

Startup Revenue Technical Review Flash 418

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 6, 2010

doing a reference call on a prospective employee. I always start wide, “so tell me about the circumstances in which you worked with Bob Smith?&# “Yeah, how’d it go?&# &# Was he a good employee?&#. If you’re: raising money you might like to ask how the investor makes decision.

Churn Rate 311

Churn Rate Due Diligence Dividend Conversion 311

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 22, 2010

I watched us build systems for large corporations whose employees were in their 40′s / 50′s and who were primarily concerned with completing their business functions rapidly and with limited errors. We were smart kids straight out of college and were designing the systems that we’d want to use.

Design 325

Design AJAX Green Web Development 325

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 28, 2009

And I made a version of this company-wide speech to our employees: “Look. Don’t overset expectations for your employees on the way in. It didn’t add up to me. How could they being doing so well in these difficult times? And then it dawned on me. I figured it out. I know that we’ve made some mistakes.

PR 331

PR Software Review Ireland Germany 331

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2010

Employees: 20. Employees: 27. The SimpleGeo API will provide you access to these services. They were founded in May 2009 in Boulder, CO, by Joe Stump (former lead Digg architect) and Matt Galligan (founder Social Thing). In similar sapce to MixerLabs GeoAPI (acquired by Twitter). Configurable from desktop-based web-based UI.

Partner 240

Partner New York City Cofounder Syndicate 240

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2013

And wants to structure a huge payout for the employees that will remain. I know many rank-and-file employees. For the 200 new employees they’ll get through acquihires do they unleash 2,000 unhappy existing employees? And reward your existing top 10% of employees handsomely. But evidence suggests otherwise.

Liquidation Preference 357

Liquidation Preference Early Stage Retention Lock-up Period 357

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 17, 2016

I would observe that they’re always recruiting and trying to figure out how to bring on other talented employees at senior ranks. Increasingly I find myself engaging executive coaches at companies an trying to help executive teams get 360 degree feedback. The best leaders I work with tend to obsess about teams.

Pakistan 150

Pakistan Technical Review Iran Russia 150

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 13, 2011

It isn’t something that would dissuade me from investing in a company, but I’d want to be very clear with the team what their respective roles were and make sure they were also very clear with their employees. What have your experiences been? Image courtesy of Headspring Insights.

Technical Review 325

Technical Review Startup Cofounder Due Diligence 325

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 20, 2019

The board also needs to be mindful of the interests of other “stakeholders” including debt holders, employees, customers and suppliers. The legal duty of the board is to the company and all of its shareholders. If the board feels that the CEO isn’t up to the task of taking the company to the next level it has a responsibility to act.

Venture Capital 236

Venture Capital Startup Angel Investor Silicon Valley 236

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 18, 2012

Recruit employees in the blind belief that the amazing job they’re quitting to join you will be worth it in the long run. Early on in my first company I had an employee ask if it was a good time to buy a home. My employees. To hide your demons so that you don’t scare the bejesus out of your employees.

Monaco 420

Monaco Cofounder Chicago Mexico 420

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 12, 2011

Lastly, he touched on the distrust of equity following the bubble in 2000, and that, particularly on the East Coast, people need to see good exits and good exits that reward employees. 7. After McAfee bought SiteAdvisor, Chris worked there for 15 months.

Technical Review 281

Technical Review Artificial Inteligence Cofounder API 281

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 10, 2010

You actually need to give advice to nearly every employee whom you offer a job to on how to best quit their job. This is important to improve conversion rates of accepted offers / joiners, shorten the time-to-join ratio and the improve the ability of that employee to maintaing good relations with their former employer. Don’t.

Employee 294

Employee Sales Conversion Hiring 294

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 6, 2010

We set our sites on our IPO price and then worked back to our current valuation and showed potential employees what we thought they could earn (with all legal caveats) if the company was successful. Options are obviously a very important economic motivator for your first 3-5 employees and your most senior management team.

Stock Options 294

Stock Options Stock Valuation Liquidation Preference 294