Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 23, 2015

I wrote this conundrum and the need to take charge of how the market define your skills in my much-read blog post on “ personal branding.” There is such a thing as a “diamond in the rough” and let’s face it – if the company was totally rocking would they be hiring you? And there’s always a but.

Technical Review 150

Technical Review Liquidation Preference Silicon Valley IP 150

The Startup Magazine

AUGUST 20, 2020

Form there, add features to your site like online booking, social media integrations, and an informative blog. That starts with having hiring practices that fish a diversity of talent out of pools that have a reputation of providing outstanding candidates. If you are, we welcome you to explore additional content on our blog.

Small Business 183

Small Business Management Non-Compete B2C 183

The Next Web

AUGUST 12, 2013

It’s part three of a series, cross-posted from his own blog , in which he draws on his experience to offer advice for aspiring entrepreneurs in Europe and beyond. They should be able to hire great designers to help build a better product. Make sure you hire an experienced lawyer for setting up the company. An engineer.

Cofounder 119

Cofounder CTO Hire Startup Europe 119

Ben's Blog

OCTOBER 6, 2011

From hire to retire, how good is your company? Some of the questions that they will help you answer: Recruiting and hiring. How do your salary and stock option packages compare to the companies that you compete with for talent? Is your management team world-class in all phases? How do you know? Training and Integration.

Management 78

Management Development Team Review Stock Options Technical Review 78

View from Seed

AUGUST 6, 2015

Of late, I’ve encountered numerous potential startup candidates and newly hired employees who have no idea what their equity means. It falls on the hiring company to thoroughly explain equity options to their new employees. It falls on the hiring company to thoroughly explain equity options to their new employees.

Equity 120

Equity Employee Cap Table Stock Options 120

Hearpreneur

DECEMBER 31, 2017

For us at CEO Blog Nation, we get it. I have spent a great deal of time studying the fundamentals of stocks, option trades, goal-setting, and public speaking. I’ve got to trust the team I’ve hired to do their job, so I can do the things that only I can do and not get caught up in minutiae.

Entrepreneur 61

Entrepreneur Stock Options Programming Washington 61

Genuine VC

SEPTEMBER 5, 2012

Other than starting to build, hire, and take over the world, there are a bunch of mundane things to do right away. Foundation for New Employee Hires Formulate and socialize with the Board acceptable compensation bands (both salary and equity options) for new employees. You’ve just closed your seed round.

Founder 156

Founder Cap Table Stock Options PR 156

View from Seed

AUGUST 6, 2015

Of late, I’ve encountered numerous potential startup candidates and newly hired employees who have no idea what their equity means. It falls on the hiring company to thoroughly explain equity options to their new employees. It falls on the hiring company to thoroughly explain equity options to their new employees.

Equity 120

Equity Employee Cap Table Stock Options 120

Up and Running

SEPTEMBER 10, 2014

Stock Option. If you are more of a technical person and not a business leader by nature, make sure your investor knows that you intend to hire a CEO to take your place as soon as reasonably possible. The post How to Raise Startup Funding from Unlikely Angel Investors appeared first on Bplans Blog. Customer References.

Angel Investor 159

Angel Investor Technical Review Software Review Accredited Investor 159

www.inc.com

SEPTEMBER 24, 2011

Back in 1997, Randy Parker was staring at a blank whiteboard, wondering where hed find the money to hire the employees and consultants he needed to build his new product. "We Create an options pool, if nothing more than in your mind, so you have some parameters to work within," Durkin says. Leadership & Managing | Tuesdays.

Fractional CTO 40

Fractional CTO Equity Iowa Technical Cofounder 40

Gust

NOVEMBER 4, 2011

Rather than reinvent the wheel, I would point readers to Martin Kleppmann’s useful blog post with graphs illustrating the effects of a valuation cap on entrepreneurs, seed investors and later-round (typically VC) investors. These options were granted shortly after MySpace, Inc. MySpace became its own company, MySpace, Inc.,

Valuation 98

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Merger Vesting 98

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 18, 2009

Yesterday I wrote a blog post ( here ) in which I urged people to not have too many founders. What if the person performs OK, but not great and you need to hire above him? This is part of my ongoing series, “ Startup Lessons.&#. Best case scenario in my mind is just 1, but at most I recommend 2. Who prevails?

Founder 251

Founder Cofounder Equity Stock Options 251

ithacaVC

DECEMBER 9, 2018

And there is a ton of literature (from blog posts to books) about the value that good independent directors can and should bring to a startup. I am talking about tension over particular issues (like salary adjustments, stock option grants, strategic direction, etc.). The definition is not a topic of controversy.

Stock Options 40

Stock Options Salary Lead Investor Founder 40

Board Effect

DECEMBER 23, 2019

The company is struggling and needs to hire or let go of a significant number of employees. The board needs to set new policies for stock options. Boards require a record of what went on during the board meeting for any purpose. The board needs written documentation of what the shareholders of the corporation decided.

Intellectual Property 64

Intellectual Property Stock Options Dividend Community 64

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 27, 2010

My original post was directed at hiring managers. It said that I didn’t believe it was a good idea to hire job hoppers. My view still stands – for many hiring managers a large factor in looking through resumes of somebody who is 30+ and has never worked somewhere for more than 18 months will be the job hopping element.

Venture Capital 285

Venture Capital Hiring Software Review Stock Options 285

infochachkie.com

SEPTEMBER 24, 2011

At the early stages of your company’s life, you cannot rely on disinterested, hired guns to define your company’s key tasks. The final straw came when I asked the latest 25-year old a simple ‘yes / no’ question related to stock options. Note: All of my advice in this blog is that of a layman. Pyramid Power. Uncle Saul.

Equity 40

Equity Silicon Valley Cofounder Technical Review 40

Up and Running

NOVEMBER 23, 2010

I ‘m very impressed by Rand Fishkin’s A Cautionary Tale from the Startup World posted on his blog over the weekend. That – trying to do too much – qualified as Doing it All , which is #5 in my recent top 10 business planning mistakes on my main blog. Second: not even faint praise for this CEO.

Common Stock 63

Common Stock Stock Options Stock Cofounder 63

thestartuplawyer.com

FEBRUARY 24, 2010

so glad we found this blog [too bad it was a little too late]. BTW, I tried visiting your blog but it crashes my Safari browser (Mac version) each time. I wrote a previous blog article regarding startup co-founders. [.] North says: June 9, 2009 at 8:50 pm Thanks for this whole blog its the best I have found.

Cofounder 40

Cofounder Founder Preferred Stock Startup 40

chrischandler.name

NOVEMBER 1, 2010

Equity to a developer works the same way, except it’s often approached as hiring an employee instead of bringing on an investor. Your stock options are worth zero until you successfully exit and, even then, only if the strike price is better than market value. Proof of execution is what matters today, not ideas.

Equity 40

Equity Developer Entrepreneur Syndicate 40

Ben's Blog

AUGUST 24, 2011

Unfortunately, unless you have a horrible hiring process, those are probably not the reasons why you got to this point. Therefore, the first step to properly firing an executive is figuring out why you hired the wrong person for your company. It’s great to hire people who can run a large scale organization if you have one.

Hiring 78

Hiring Stock Options Conversion Employee 78

thinkspace.com

SEPTEMBER 7, 2012

Chris Dixon wrote a blog post about “ The one number you should know about your equity grant “ The one number you should know about your equity grant is the percent of the company you are being granted (in options, shares, whatever – it doesn’t matter – just the % matters). Member Coordinator. Bookkeeper. Marketing Intern.

Equity 62

Equity Employee Founder CTO Hire 62

Ben's Blog

APRIL 21, 2010

Six Months Later… Fast-forward six months and everyone in the company is wondering why the sales (or marketing or finance or product) guy who has produced nothing got such a monster stock option package. Meanwhile, the people doing all the work have much fewer options. So what happens? Final thoughts.

Stock Options 78

Stock Options Restful Hiring Sales 78

www.startupnorth.ca

OCTOBER 23, 2010

Being an early hire at a startup gives an individual the ability to make tremendous impact on an organization as it grows – and both the founders and those hires should know it.” This should force companies to think about building value with each early hire, and not just filling a position. It’s just unfeasible.

Employee 41

Employee Founder Salary Equity 41

www.payne.org

SEPTEMBER 22, 2011

2 Stock Classes: Common and Preferred. 5 Stock vs Options. 6 Founders / Restricted Stock. The re-heating of the venture funded tech market has pushed a heat up of the hiring market, and Im getting more calls from friends asking for help understanding startup stock (equity) offers. 3 Dilution. 4 Vesting.

Equity 56

Equity Employee Vesting Preferred Stock 56

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 2, 2010

If you’re a pure startup and haven’t raised any money – you might change the life of every person you hire. I always encourage people to allocate a few extra stock options to those that join super early when your company is risky and they just believed in you. I started blogging because Brad Feld blogged.

Europe 352

Europe France San Francisco Chicago 352

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 10, 2015

Even when I’m not the one being sued I find myself being dragged into deposition after deposition and my blog (along with all my emails) are being served as evidence. He had a stock option vesting program and had vested a significant amount of his stock but not all. Lawsuits are becoming so prevalent these days.

Vesting 150

Vesting Cofounder IP Stock Options 150

Duct Tape Marketing

MAY 23, 2019

You’ve hired all these smart recent grads from Ivy League schools, how do you then keep them once you get them there? At one point, there was a sentiment that it’s easier to get hired here in the first place than it is to move to another team, because there are a lot of variables that have to happen internally.

Programming 63

Programming Finance Turkey Stock Options 63

YoungUpstarts

JANUARY 4, 2019

Comprehensive and articulate, Netflix’s culture deck covered everything, from its history to its purpose; from its expectations for excellence to hiring and firing policies; and nearly every process and work function. And the single biggest driver of successful hires is how well the company defines and understands its culture.

Stock Options 138

Stock Options Global Viral Employee 138

Ben's Blog

APRIL 28, 2010

Salmon points out that “not a single one of the 12 [candidates] is a CEO who was hired to run a company by its board of directors.”. This knowledge becomes the foundation on top of which a gigantic knowledge pyramid gets built which includes: Knowledge of every employee who gets hired and why. If you do, hire him!

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Software Review 78

techcrunch.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

This is the first post in what’s going to be a series of blogs on how to go from nothing – no connections, no team, no money and no knowledge of how the startup industry really works – to operating a growing business. I mentioned to Mike that I was going to kick this series off over on the Meebo Blog , but he suggested I start it here.

Technical Review 84

Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Software Review 84

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MARCH 11, 2014

I think it was either in one of your blog posts or one of your other interviews, but being alone, it’s getting hard at times. So hiring more people and being around more people and getting more things done is not actually one of the reasons. I’m going to hire another engineer. Jason: Okay, hold up.

Technical Cofounder 220

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Software Review Management 220

OnlyOnce

SEPTEMBER 13, 2013

A couple people suggested it would make a good blog post in and of itself. That hopefully gives the company enough lead time to find a replacement and provide for enough overlap between you and the new hire so that you can train your replacement and hand things off. And hiring great people is difficult, as you also know.

Stock Options 134

Stock Options Vesting Retention Email 134

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 8, 2009

Eric, I wrote an open letter on my blog to the gov2.0 Sarbanes Oxley has made it impossible to go public reducing financial capital for start-ups and the FASB rules on stock options have made it harder to attract human capital to start-ups. Startup Lessons Learned season one : Every post from the blogs first year in print form.

DC 90

DC Washington San Francisco SBIR 90

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. Solution: Use a hiring plan to size the option pool.

Option Pool 68

Option Pool Pre-Money Valuation Dilution Warrant 68

venturehacks.com

MARCH 21, 2008

Advisor compensation Whether you’re hiring a normal advisor or super advisor: Advisory shares are usually issued as common stock options. The options typically vest monthly over 1-2 years with 100% single-trigger acceleration and no cliff. The company has left the line of business where the advisor added value.

Advisory Board 44

Advisory Board Cap Table Vesting Equity 44

Ben's Blog

MARCH 17, 2011

Andreessen argues that people ask for many things from a company: salary, bonus, stock options, span of control, and titles. Does Facebook ever miss out on a new hire due to its low titles? There are two schools of thought regarding this. One characterized by Marc Andreessen and the other by Mark Zuckerberg. Yes, definitely.

Employee 78

Employee Stock Options Engineer Management 78

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JUNE 27, 2011

Deal A gets to your number in stock options with a 4-year earn-out in a public company whose stock has been uninteresting for the past three years, plus an additional third of your number in cash — more than you wanted! I love writing this blog, but I’m not up for the book deal that was offered me.

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Sales Term Sheet Stock Deal Structure 235