Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 6, 2010

Options are gravy - I lived through the first dot com era where we used stock options as a recruiting tool. We give out stock options. Do the harder work and convince them to join anyways – without the stock option bravado. ** Unless you really are Mark Pincus, Mark Zuckerberg, Ev Williams or similar.

Stock Options 294

Stock Options Stock Valuation Liquidation Preference 294

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 29, 2015

Many employees forget that there isn’t even a market for startup stock, until after the company has gone public, which hasn’t happened positively to many companies in the last few years. Thus, options don’t “pay the mortgage” today, so to speak. Your compensation is the total package of stock plus salary plus benefits.

Stock Options 120

Stock Options Stock Advisory Board Startup 120

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 2, 2022

Great team members may take more time to find, and cost you stock options, but a qualified and highly motivated team that stretches your budget is a good calculated risk. Recruit the best team members and provide incentives. Trying to save money by recruiting family members, or hiring only interns, is a bad risk.

Forecast 304

Forecast Stock Options Technical Review Metrics 304

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 22, 2020

Calculate employee stock option values and vesting times, as well as salary. Since nine out of ten startups fail completely, serious investors look for a 10X return on their investment within five years. Look for examples of similar companies and revenue multiples achieved from acquirers.

Technical Review 436

Technical Review Due Diligence Sweat Equity Burn Rate 436

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 1, 2022

Many employees forget that there isn’t even a market for startup stock, until after the company has gone public, which hasn’t happened positively to many companies in the last few years. Thus, options don’t “pay the mortgage” today, so to speak. Your compensation is the total package of stock plus salary plus benefits.

Stock Options 343

Stock Options Advisory Board Stock Startup 343

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 18, 2023

Calculate employee stock option values and vesting times, as well as salary. Since nine out of ten startups fail completely, serious investors look for a 10X return on their investment within five years. Look for examples of similar companies and revenue multiples achieved from acquirers.

Sweat Equity 207

Sweat Equity Burn Rate Technical Review Intellectual Property 207

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 8, 2022

An even better alternative could be stock options, linked to the long-term success of the company. Typical incentives give percentages of quarterly revenues and contribution as rewards for success. You need different rewards for a team running an innovation project, such as reaching agreed milestones.

Stock Options 277

Stock Options Incubator Framework Stock 277

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 9, 2020

Outside professionals are always available, but they may have their own agenda, such as building a career, making money quickly, or managing up the stock price for a quick exit. The rest can come from early hires (with stock options to assure commitment), equity investors, or even strategic partners. The operations superstar.

Technical Cofounder 308

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Advisory Board Stock Options 308

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 26, 2020

If you want to give stock options, or have already been giving them, the employees will love the liquidity of their options, and the thought of selling shares for a profit. Most startup founders voluntarily exit or are pushed out, and the fun is gone. Analysts want escalating profits.

Cost 319

Cost IPO Exit Strategy Initial Public Offering 319

abovethecrowd.com

FEBRUARY 1, 2009

Prominent finance publications like the WSJ and the Motley Fool along with several bloggers have recently taken shots at Google with respect to their decision to re-price a boat-load of employee stock options.

Stock Options 40

Stock Options Stock Finance Technical Review 40

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 8, 2020

Great team members may take more time to find, and cost you stock options, but a qualified and highly motivated team that stretches your budget is a good calculated risk. Recruit the best team members and provide incentives. Trying to save money by recruiting family members, or hiring only interns, is a bad risk.

Management 322

Management Entrepreneur Forecast Stock Options 322

SoCal CTO

NOVEMBER 14, 2012

To find the equity numbers that were relevant for the particular person here, I went back through my prior post and looked at Wilson Sonsini and DFJ Gotham Ventures The Option Pool Shuffle Employee Equity How Much How much equity for investors and employees? Quick & Dirty How-To: Employee Stock Option Allocations

CTO Hire 329

CTO Hire Equity Seed Stage Option Pool 329

The Startup Magazine

MARCH 13, 2023

If you have been trading in the stock market for quite some time now, you are well aware that you have to play every card right to see a solid return on your investments. The importance of going over daily stock market updates is seriously understated. Alphabet (GOOGL) The GOOGL stock needs no introduction. GOOGL and GOOG.

Stock 103

Stock Stock Options Restful Business Model 103

Feld Thoughts

JANUARY 17, 2013

I’ve never really understood why the majority of stock option refresh grants are stacked grants mid-way through the granting process. Assume you hire someone and grant them 10,000 options with monthly vesting of four years with a one year cliff. One thing, however, has always baffled me. Let me give an example.

Stock Options 134

Stock Options Stock Vesting Retention 134

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 9, 2014

Founders stock, and stock options, will be worth nothing for the first several years, if not forever. Who gets stock options, and how many? Without risking all your life savings, you may find that corporate desk you have as an alternative is a lot more satisfying. How much money has been invested so far?

Technical Review 250

Technical Review Stock Options Due Diligence Silicon Valley 250

The Startup Lawyer

JANUARY 2, 2014

Stock Options' Luckily for startups, advisors are prevalent and can be readily found through incubators, networking and/or personal contacts. The best advisors are in it to pay it forward or give back to the startup community. If you want to take a very informal advisor relationship […].

Stock Options 54

Stock Options Stock Incubator Community 54

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 21, 2017

Many employees forget that there isn’t even a market for startup stock, until after the company has gone public, which hasn’t happened positively to many companies in the last few years. Thus, options don’t “pay the mortgage” today, so to speak. Your compensation is the total package of stock plus salary plus benefits.

Stock 140

Stock Stock Options Advisory Board Startup 140

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 23, 2023

Advisory Board members are often paid in a balance of equity (stock options) and cash (“cash” is the industry term for money wired to your bank account). If you join a big company, assuming it’s public, you’ll get stock which immediately can translate into financial gains assuming the company performs well.

Government 212

Government Advisory Board Salary Sales Cycle 212

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 14, 2017

Executives run the day-to-day so often the board is more involved as a sparring partner at key intervals. The administrative work we actually do at board meetings?

Cofounder 217

Cofounder Stock Options Equity Technical Review 217

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 6, 2019

An even better alternative could be stock options, linked to the long-term success of the company. Typical incentives give percentages of quarterly revenues and contribution as rewards for success. You need different rewards for a team running an innovation project, such as reaching agreed milestones.

Stock Options 236

Stock Options Incubator Framework Stock 236

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 25, 2019

Many employees forget that there isn’t even a market for startup stock, until after the company has gone public, which hasn’t happened positively to many companies in the last few years. Thus, options don’t “pay the mortgage” today, so to speak. Your compensation is the total package of stock plus salary plus benefits.

Equity 237

Equity Stock Options Advisory Board Stock 237

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 18, 2015

Founders stock, and stock options, will be worth nothing for the first several years, if not forever. Who gets stock options, and how many? Without risking all your life savings, you may find that corporate desk you have as an alternative is a lot more satisfying. How much money has been invested so far?

Technical Review 120

Technical Review Entrepreneur Stock Options Due Diligence 120

Berkonomics

DECEMBER 6, 2010

Use stock options and warrants to pay for service only rarely. Earlier, I stated that stock options are the currency of early stage business. There are times when services of others are available for stock instead of – or in addition to cash. This truth is obvious when a start-up has no cash.

Stock Options 61

Stock Options Stock Warrant Common Stock 61

View from Seed

APRIL 27, 2020

Others are just starting out, but the financial safety net they thought they had from a spouse’s job or highly appreciated stock options has disappeared. Some are staring into the abyss and they know they are not going to get out. This is scary. It’s going to last a while, and it’s going to be incredibly hard.

Cofounder 194

Cofounder Software Review Portfolio Technical Review 194

Business Plan Blog

SEPTEMBER 18, 2012

Reserve 10-20% Of Your Company’s Outstanding Equity For A Stock Option Plan. It is critical for a start-up to consider this reality and reserve 10-20% of its outstanding equity for a stock option plan. Equity incentives are a major form of compensation for most emerging growth and technology companies.

Stock Options 61

Stock Options Stock Option Pool Dilution 61

Up and Running

DECEMBER 1, 2015

At the time, Facebook wasn’t the goliath it is today and so, Choe was given a couple of options: he could have $60,000 in cash, or stock (equal to the equivalent amount of the cash back then). If however you are giving a “normal employee” an incentive stock option plan (more on that later), that’s entirely different.

Equity 60

Equity Employee Stock Options Vesting 60

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 14, 2022

A reverse merger is the acquisition of an already public company (usually a dormant shell) to avoid the Initial Public Offering (IPO) process and cost, to quickly get your startup on a public exchange for fund raising through visibility and selling stock. Yet reverse mergers are not all bad.

Merger 261

Merger OTC IPO Due Diligence 261

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 18, 2018

Outside professionals are always available, but they may have their own agenda, such as building a career, making money quickly, or managing up the stock price for a quick exit. The rest can come from early hires (with stock options to assure commitment), equity investors, or even strategic partners. The operations superstar.

Technical Cofounder 144

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Advisory Board Startup 144

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 11, 2014

Outside professionals are always available, but they may have their own agenda, such as building a career, making money quickly, or managing up the stock price for a quick exit. The rest can come from early hires (with stock options to assure commitment), equity investors, or even strategic partners. The operations superstar.

Technical Cofounder 245

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Advisory Board Startup 245

YoungUpstarts

FEBRUARY 1, 2020

That can affect your first-time audit in two main ways: with stock option expensing and 409A Valuations. Stock Option Expensing. . When you want to issue financials that are GAAP compliant, you need to expense your stock options. Even if something is not a cash transaction, you still need to cost it.

CPA 165

CPA Stock Options Valuation Stock 165

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 27, 2014

Great team members may take more time to find, and cost you stock options, but a qualified and highly motivated team that stretches your budget is a good calculated risk. Recruit the best team members and provide incentives. Trying to save money by recruiting family members, or hiring only interns, is a bad risk.

Startup 283

Startup Forecast Stock Options Technical Review 283

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 10, 2022

Another example is Facebook , maintaining motivation with food, stock options, collaborative office space, an on-site laundry, and a competitive atmosphere that fosters personal growth and learning with great benefits.

Stock Options 362

Stock Options Salary Leadership Stock 362

Up and Running

OCTOBER 19, 2021

Stock options, restricted stock, or performance shares can make your offer more attractive to the right candidate. However, you should still do your best to draw up an offer that’s sustainable to you and fair to them. Offer unconventional but practical employee benefits.

Startup 127

Startup Salary Stock Options Employee 127

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 17, 2018

Great team members may take more time to find, and cost you stock options, but a qualified and highly motivated team that stretches your budget is a good calculated risk. Recruit the best team members and provide incentives. Trying to save money by recruiting family members, or hiring only interns, is a bad risk.

Forecast 161

Forecast Stock Options Technical Review Metrics 161

Women Entrepreneurs Can

FEBRUARY 8, 2023

Invest in Financial Products Investing in financial products such as stocks, cryptocurrencies , bonds, commodities, and mutual funds can provide a steady stream of income while also offering the potential for significant returns. Additionally, consider offering incentives such as bonuses or stock options to reward employee performance.

Artificial Inteligence 52

Artificial Inteligence Guerilla Technical Review Stock Options 52

Berkonomics

OCTOBER 26, 2010

Pay early stage board members of companies that are not lifestyle businesses one percent of the fully diluted equity in the form of an option that vests over four years of service. Inside board members, CEO and any other paid employees are not paid for board service in either stock options or cash.

Stock Options 66

Stock Options Early Stage Stock Vesting 66

Berkonomics

DECEMBER 14, 2023

But how about awarding stock options to all employees? These plans are not as popular today because of their complexity and difficulty to manage, lost in favor of simple stock option plans. Obviously for the appropriate individuals, a bonus program aligned to the department’s goals is appropriate.

Employee 62

Employee Stock Options Stock Equity 62