The Next Web

OCTOBER 7, 2013

They were referring to non-founder engineers, most commonly the first hire for technology businesses. is frequently granted ownership significantly less than that of the founders. However, at the very early stage, they are taking as much risk with their future as the founders. Engineer #1?

Engineer 129

Engineer Dilution Option Pool Vesting 129

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 27, 2013

Last year I wrote a blog post on entrepreneurs with a chip on their shoulders. A chip on one’s shoulder as in, “F**k the system, it’s broken and I want to fix it” is exactly the energy I look for in entrepreneurs. My point … We’ve all been there – every entrepreneur. Take Maker Studios.

Churn Rate 371

Churn Rate Vesting Viral eCommerce 371

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 29, 2013

” From the hyperbolic Jason Calacanis weighing in that “The petty VC’s did everything to deride [Naval, the co-founder of AngelList]” as though the industry was collectively s g its pants that AngelList was going to put us out of business. founder fighting. founder fighting. So What’s the Big Deal?

Syndicate 356

Syndicate Syndication Cofounder Early Stage 356

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. This is all built into a typical founder stock purchase agreement. This is great.simplified funding/founders docs out of the box. SeriesSeed.com.

Finance 40

Finance Term Sheet Vesting LLC 40

venturehacks.com

FEBRUARY 24, 2010

SUPPORTED BY Products Archives @venturehacks Books AngelList About RSS How to pick a co-founder by Naval Ravikant on November 12th, 2009 Update : Also see our 40-minute interview on this topic. Picking a co-founder is your most important decision. One founder companies can work, against the odds (hello, Mark Zuckerberg).

Cofounder 101

Cofounder Founder Technical Cofounder Technical Review 101

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 30, 2010

My advice to entrepreneurs was and is “ when the hors d’oeuvres tray is being passed take two ” (e.g. So I agreed to offer my current thinking on the economy and what it portends for the VC industry & fund raising for entrepreneurs. What does this mean if you’re an entrepreneur? raise money now to weather any storms).

Entrepreneur 298

Entrepreneur Technical Review Balance Sheet Government 298

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

Up and Running

MAY 3, 2012

After all, entrepreneurs can do many good things, not least to create wealth and employment, pay taxes and help the balance of trade through exports. We’re all failing this generation of entrepreneurs by not being tough on them. I work with entrepreneurs and have a pretty good window into their world. Surely we can do better?

Entrepreneur 82

Entrepreneur Technical Review Silicon Valley Lean 82

The Next Web

JUNE 15, 2012

From Silicon Valley to Peoria, Illinois, cash-strapped startups look for inventive way to finance their business – often handing out equity to employees, consultants, vendors, and other service providers. In most cases, you’ll only be losing a few months of vesting on the stock. It’s a logical solution. Pitfalls in sharing equity.

Equity 116

Equity Stock Options Vesting Stock 116

www.informationarbitrage.com

FEBRUARY 24, 2010

Home About Press IA Capital Partners Archives After 17 years in M&A, Derivatives and Trading, Im spending my time with young entrepreneurs in and around financial technology and digital media. Main February 23, 2010 Advice for CTO Founders: Dont Let Business Kill the Business Founding a technology company is an amazing thing.

CTO Hire 40

CTO Hire Founder Cap Table Vesting 40

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

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

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 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

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 18, 2014

At an accelerator … Me: Raising convertible notes as a seed round is one of the biggest disservices our industry has done to entrepreneurs since 2001-2003 when there were “full ratchets” and “multiple liquidation preferences” – the most hostile terms anybody found in term sheets 10 years ago. Your A round?

Venture Capital 417

Venture Capital Liquidation Preference Valuation Term Sheet 417

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

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 barrier between entrepreneur and money (incubators, angels, etc.) is lowered.

Equity 40

Equity Employee Founder Cofounder 40

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

www.inc.com

SEPTEMBER 24, 2011

Finance | Tuesdays. Entrepreneur news from reporter Eric Markowitz. 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.

Fractional CTO 40

Fractional CTO Equity Iowa Technical Cofounder 40

The Startup Magazine

AUGUST 11, 2017

The press release lays out Joe Zhu’s business accomplishments, but we at the magazine have seen firsthand Joe Zhu’s work behind the scenes helping struggling startups with advice and counsel on both business strategy and funding, even when he has no vested interest. ” So what’s next for the young entrepreneur?

Illinois 77

Illinois Chicago Entrepreneur Cofounder 77

www.chubbybrain.com

SEPTEMBER 28, 2011

We love a good entrepreneurial success story – entrepreneur as protagonist overcomes obstacles and builds a thriving, successful company (and become wealthy while doing so). Go vest yourself. When a co-founder walks out of a company — as was the case for me — you’ve already been dealt a heavy blow. It’s free.

Software Review 79

Software Review Startup Technical Review Vesting 79

David Teten

DECEMBER 3, 2019

Small investment firms often have interns and entrepreneurs in residence passing through, each of which is a security risk. 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. 2) Market .

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Software Review Analytics Private Equity 78

Tim Keane

JANUARY 12, 2010

Please see later version of this post on May 16, 2010 Entrepreneurs are often not experts in the area of term-sheet negotiations and all of the surrounding issues.   Investors sometimes “present” the terms they’d like and expect the entrepreneurs to react. Term-sheets and Valuations: Thinking about Negotiations.

Term Sheet 68

Term Sheet Valuation Dividend Liquidation Preference 68

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

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 19, 2015

Entrepreneurs could learn about loneliness of success: nobody talks about. I spend a ton of time with founders discussing personal issues such founder fighting, the fear of failure, the rejection of investors as well as dealing with real failure and figuring out the aftermath. Every founder knows this.

Houston 150

Houston Vesting Founder Capital Call 150

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 2, 2015

Resilience – the ability to bounce back from adversity – is one of the key attributes of entrepreneurs and was the focus of my first weekly radio show, Entrepreneurs are Everywhere , on Sirius XM Radio Channel 111. Kathryn shared the painful lessons she learned when her first startup fell apart. Broken startup dreams.

Entrepreneur 120

Entrepreneur New York Cofounder Equity 120

blog.simeonov.com

FEBRUARY 22, 2010

Simeon, can you tell us how you structure ownership and control so you can fire your co-founders if necessary? The first part will dispel some myths, address the lifecycle of founder agreements and the key compensation and control parameters in them. Let’s start by dispelling some myths: There is a standard founder agreement.

Founder 44

Founder Vesting Agile Startup 44

Gust

SEPTEMBER 17, 2014

Me: Raising convertible notes as a seed round is one of the biggest disservices our industry has done to entrepreneurs since 2001-2003 when there were “full ratchets” and “multiple liquidation preferences” – the most hostile terms anybody found in term sheets 10 years ago. It’s like we need a finance 101 course for entrepreneurs.

Liquidation Preference 153

Liquidation Preference Valuation Term Sheet Stock 153

Gust

NOVEMBER 4, 2011

Entrepreneurs and investors who have spent any time dealing with convertible debt seed financing transactions are likely to have encountered the subject of valuation caps. The cap is irrelevant if the next equity financing is at a valuation below the cap amount.) was spun out, and the valuation was set by that financing round.

Valuation 98

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Merger Vesting 98

Up and Running

AUGUST 10, 2016

Prior to this, if you were an entrepreneur, your options for financing came down to your own personal savings, credit cards, banks (if you qualified), and angels or VCs (if you were one of the lucky few). They are based out of Houston, Texas, and the founders have a proven track record (and clearly a large following).

Securities and Exchange Commission 60

Securities and Exchange Commission Vesting Equity Houston 60

Software By Rob

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

Join nearly 6,000 startup entrepreneurs by subscribing to my RSS feed. I was surprised by this, as I thought Seth was going to discuss another option I’ve seen used with great success: customer financing. Customer financing is not popular with startups because it’s hard. Why Don’t More Startups Do This?

Equity 42

Equity Software Review RSS Widget 42

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 30, 2015

by Jeff Carter, managing director and founder of Grand Coast Capital Group. Find someone in the line of work that you want to pursue who’s not only successful but also willing to mentor you and take a vested interest in your career. There’s no rationale for a young entrepreneur to not have a mentor.

Vesting 100

Vesting Finance Founder Internet 100

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

www.instigatorblog.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

David Crow just posted about this very topic: Founders vs. Early Employees and shows the Venture Hacks chart. But nevertheless, I do think that the first few employees – especially those ever-critical developers – need to be more properly incentivized and made to feel closer to founders than employees.

Equity 41

Equity Employee Startup Vesting 41

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

The Next Web

DECEMBER 29, 2013

To find out, I asked a panel of successful entrepreneurs from the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) , the following question: What do you think will be the new “it” social- or content-related job in 2014 for startups and why? Andrew Schrage , Money Crashers Personal Finance. . Andrew Vest , Preferling. . What’s next?

Social Media 164

Social Media Vesting Distribution 164