While progressive discussions with an investor about the investment are fine and most revolve around pre-diligence matters, sometimes these discussions shift towards the pre-money valuation and investment amount. refer to this waiting period as “term sheet purgatory.&#. MORE >>

The title is “Money, Marketing and Management with HubSpot’s Founders”. Sign-up for: Money, Marketing and Management (aka “Stuff we learned about startups that you’ll probably find useful”). Avoid valuation infatuation: Entrepreneurs often become obsessed with the pre-money valuation on the deal. Thanks. MORE >>

typical startup goes throughseveral rounds of funding, and at each round you want to take justenough money to reach the speed where you can shift into the nextgear. At Viaweb we got our first $10,000 ofseed money from our friend Julian, but he was sufficiently richthat its hard to say whether he should be classified as a friendor angel. MORE >>

Because now you have more to lose than just a company and your (or someone else’s) money. When I find, and hire on options, the three perfect CEs/directors must I consider them co founders and treat them accordingly? He obviously never launched a startup and got shafted by a co-founder. And that’s a big mistake. MORE >>

Second, the employee option pool is typically set at 15-20% of a company’s fully-diluted post-money capitalization at the time of a Series A financing, though it is sometimes set as low as 10% or as high as 25%. The goal should be to establish a pool that is the right size to meet the company’s needs for the foreseeable future. MORE >>