Finance Hiring Option Pool Valuation 
SoCal CTO
SEPTEMBER 27, 2011
For your first key hires, three, five, maybe as much as ten, you will probably not be able to use any kind of formula. For example, suppose you're just two founders and you want to hire an additional hacker who's so good you feel he'll increase the average outcome of the whole company by 20%. n = (1.2 - 1)/1.2 =.167. and we have 11.1%
The Next Web
OCTOBER 7, 2013
They were referring to non-founder engineers, most commonly the first hire for technology businesses. Startup employees are granted common shares out of something called an option pool. As stated earlier, investors will dilute ownership upon nearly every round of financing. Converting percents to cents (and dollars).
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Rob Go
JUNE 17, 2014
In my last post about raising seed vs. jumping straight to A, I received a good comment from Chris Woods that my analysis neglected to include the impact of option pools that are created at each financing round. Essentially, the new investor wants there to be a certain % of options available to employees after they invest.
venturehacks.com
OCTOBER 21, 2010
SUPPORTED BY Products Archives @venturehacks Books AngelList About RSS The Option Pool Shuffle by Nivi on April 10th, 2007 “Follow the money card!&# – The Inside Man, Three-Card Shuffle Summary: Don’t let your investors determine the size of the option pool for you. Don’t lose this game.
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. Many young tech startups reserve 15%-20% for employee stock options. It’s a logical solution.
Up and Running
SEPTEMBER 20, 2021
For instance, the cap table will help you with various possibilities while running business activities like available options and pre-money valuations faster. This can be helpful when you are hiring a COO for the company, and the candidate asks to get percentage ownership in the company. Total share ownership.
Both Sides of the Table
JUNE 5, 2015
I am reminded of this problem every time my firm does a financing where a note went before us but more specifically I was reminded by this great post by Brad Feld to talk about the pre-money vs. post-money conversion issue. In the old days VCs funded off of a “pre-money” valuation. How much is in the option pool?
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