Hunter Walker

AUGUST 1, 2021

The idea being that there’s economic opportunity in this segment that’s not being captured today, and there’s a chance to start a virtuous cycle where the investments they make will likely include folks in their networks, who will also hire people in *their* networks, and everyone succeeds together.

Silicon Valley 123

Silicon Valley Cap Table IPO .Net 123

Hunter Walker

SEPTEMBER 5, 2021

Startup CEOs Should Test Strength of Cap Table Every ~6 Months To Know Where They Stand. No founder should assume their pro rata from insiders is in the bag, let alone a bridge check, only because the cost of being wrong (to the company) is so high. Go read it and then come back here…. Long term greedy!!!!

Cap Table 94

Cap Table Seed Stage Syndicate Syndication 94

Austin Startup

AUGUST 20, 2017

Hiring is a chapter unto itself, but it deserves to lead off any discussion of context. Compensation decisions obviously affect hiring and retention. You can’t be too careful in determining comp packages for your new hires. Your Cap Table is something that deserves constant care and attention.

Technical Review 48

Technical Review Software Review Cap Table Securities and Exchange Commission 48

This is going to be BIG.

MAY 20, 2019

On the other hand, some people try and pad the cap table with a bunch of big names or industry vets, even if their check size is small, just to build the network. Maybe it’s an e-mail or maybe it’s just a quarterly phone call that everyone on the cap table can dial-in to. 3) Small investors are more aligned.

Cap Table 107

Cap Table Later Stage Hiring Founder 107

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2018

A detailed financial model that shows your anticipated revenue, costs and profits (Income Statement) as well as your balance sheet and cashflow statements. I hired a sales coach named Kai Krickle who helped me figure out how to close more deals. So how does this work in practice? I mean, in a real fund-raising process? No problem.

Cap Table 336

Cap Table Due Diligence Forecast Churn Rate 336

Hunter Walker

MAY 13, 2023

Especially in the early days of mobile/iOS engineering, if you hired strong technical talent into your early stage company, you basically created an acquisition outcome floor. Those who do, often believe they can hire from the open market without the hassle of an acquisition. of the time my answer is no f **g way].

Early Stage 117

Early Stage Cap Table Acquisition Sales 117

David Teten

DECEMBER 3, 2019

Some notable metrics are revenue growth rates, free cashflow, leverage ratios, historical financing amounts, returns on marketing spend, customer acquisition costs, lifetime value of customers, customer churn rates, and team social scores. 645 Ventures released a cap table simulator to help level the playing field.

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Software Review Analytics Private Equity 78

Altgate

JUNE 25, 2012

One who attracted much attention is David Choe, the graffiti artist hired to paint the company’s first headquarters. Instead, the dead equity languishes on the cap table, weighing down the startup and making it harder to attract and motivate the people who could impact its growth. A Significant – and Growing – Problem.

Equity 44

Equity Vesting Cap Table Technical Review 44

abovethecrowd.com

JUNE 2, 2021

According to an interview with Elon Musk, this campaign cost Paypal about $60 million , which most Silicon Valley historians would consider money well spent. It would cost a tremendous amount of money to run such a program. With the 7% banker fee that is a 35% AVERAGE cost of capital. Billions of dollars. Wouldn’t that be great?

IPO 82

IPO Customer Matching Silicon Valley 82

View from Seed

AUGUST 6, 2015

When someone goes to work for an early startup, the compensation package general includes an annual salary, health insurance, and, instead of fixed-cost performance upside, a percentage of unvested options to purchase equity in the company. It falls on the hiring company to thoroughly explain equity options to their new employees.

Equity 120

Equity Employee Cap Table Stock Options 120

View from Seed

OCTOBER 15, 2014

Examples of housekeeping include the following list, though not every item will appear every time: Finance: Cash out date, burn rate, 409A valuation, cap table, common/preferred stock dashboard. Team: Hires, fires, departures, responsibility changes, major promotions, and your org chart.

Seed Stage 331

Seed Stage Cap Table Metrics Burn Rate 331

Altgate

AUGUST 25, 2012

One who attracted much attention is David Choe, the graffiti artist hired to paint the company’s first headquarters. Instead, the dead equity languishes on the cap table, weighing down the startup and making it harder to attract and motivate the people who could impact its growth. A Significant – and Growing – Problem.

Equity 28

Equity Vesting Cap Table Technical Review 28

View from Seed

AUGUST 6, 2015

When someone goes to work for an early startup, the compensation package general includes an annual salary, health insurance, and, instead of fixed-cost performance upside, a percentage of unvested options to purchase equity in the company. It falls on the hiring company to thoroughly explain equity options to their new employees.

Equity 120

Equity Employee Cap Table Stock Options 120

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 21, 2010

I know he’s smart but you wouldn’t hire a Javascript developer to do your database design – would you? How to manage costs - One of the biggest frustrations that people have with lawyers are unexpected costs. Your cousin specializes in entertainment law – that’s different.

Southern California 318

Southern California Silicon Valley IP Stock Options 318

David Teten

AUGUST 19, 2019

Repaid 12-36 months with ability to prepay at reduced cost. For RBI, return caps of 1.2x-1.8x The mode purpose for funding is (in order of frequency) Sales, Marketing, Market Expansion, Product Development, and Hiring Employees. Limited amount of existing debt and a clean cap table”. Capital need of up to $1.5M

Revenue 60

Revenue Technical Review Software Review Equity 60

keen.io

FEBRUARY 5, 2013

On the other hand, this was new territory for the founders as well; they had zero experience making offers to new startup hires. As a founder, his salary was lower than any of those offered to the new hires; he also had substantially more equity. But would it make sense for both of us to take that route? What is the difference between.5%

Salary 50

Salary Equity Startup San Francisco 50

Haystack

AUGUST 18, 2019

You lose influence as larger investors come into the cap table and start throwing their weight around. On this dimension, most seed funds can’t even compete on network, brand, or the cost of capital. On this dimension, most seed funds can’t even compete on network, brand, or the cost of capital.

Seed Stage 108

Seed Stage Cap Table Early Stage Malaysia 108

David Teten

OCTOBER 1, 2015

The reality however is that entrepreneurs should only play the equity game with newer, very focused firms that specialize in this practice and not traditional work for hire or a blend. Help identify key technologist and product hires to transition in-house (week 13 onward, however this can take 1 year).

Software Developers 60

Software Developers Software Development Software Review Technical Cofounder 60

This is going to be BIG.

DECEMBER 3, 2020

Depending on the minimum investment size, if you think about what hiring an actual analyst, or someone more senior, might cost you to look at deals you’re serious about, an investment in a fund could may for itself in access. Less than that and you need something else to bring to the table. b) Reputation for adding value.

Portfolio 134

Portfolio Syndicate Syndication Deal Flow 134

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 opportunity cost is probably too high. A naive entrepreneur hires the wrong business advisor and a major new investor asks the entrepreneur to clean up the dead wood. .&#

Advisory Board 44

Advisory Board Cap Table Vesting Equity 44

Eric Friedman

JUNE 27, 2016

This is the classic “hire people smarter than you” which is harder said than done. I have seen what I call “predatory advisors” come in and really mess up a cap table by promising big intros and sales contracts only to disappear after the first 6-12 months. Think about the things you DON’T know.

Equity 98

Equity Vesting Cap Table Common Stock 98

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 23, 2017

Sources like Crunchbase , Angel List , and Seed Invest even give this data away for free or very low cost. EShares is an increasingly popular tool in our portfolio for tracking private company cap tables. The only problem that faces startup investors now is how to mine this new data layer efficiently to increase returns.”.

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Technical Review 60

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 9, 2020

And these are people that we spent so much time to hire. We went through hundreds of thousands of resumes to hire those 1,900 people and we do so much to bring them in and to have to say goodbye to them, I'd say that was the hardest part. That meant of course initially raising money and cutting costs. Brian Chesky : Yeah.

Silicon Valley 60

Silicon Valley Hosting Cofounder Employee 60

venturehacks.com

SEPTEMBER 22, 2011

Consider the opportunity cost of spending shares on employees and investors. In practice, you raise money or hire an employee because you need to, not because you want to. Say the equity equation tells you to pay a prospective hire above market. You should still pay the hire a market rate and save the company some equity.

Equity 40

Equity Cap Table Valuation RSS 40

venturehacks.com

OCTOBER 21, 2010

Use a hiring plan to justify a small option pool, increase your share price, and increase your effective valuation. If you don’t keep your eyes on the option pool, your investors will slip it in the pre-money and cost you millions of dollars of effective valuation. Solution: Use a hiring plan to size the option pool.

Option Pool 68

Option Pool Pre-Money Valuation Dilution Warrant 68

www.paulgraham.com

APRIL 28, 2010

For example, a seed firmshould be able to give advice about how to approach VCs, which VCsobviously dont need to do; whereas VCs should be able to giveadvice about how to hire an "executive team," which is not an issuein the seed stage. You dont have to spend time on bureaucraticstuff, because you havent hired any bureaucrats yet.

Technical Review 76

Technical Review Startup Software Review Angel Investor 76

abovethecrowd.com

APRIL 20, 2016

In Silicon Valley boardrooms, where “growth at all costs” had been the mantra for many years, people began to imagine a world where the cost of capital could rise dramatically, and profits could come back in vogue. You can no longer simply look at the cap table and estimate your return.

IPO 40

IPO Term Sheet Silicon Valley Valuation 40

www.payne.org

SEPTEMBER 22, 2011

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. But this usually happens NOT to compensate for dilution, but to recognize a bigger contribution to the company than what you were originally hired for.

Equity 56

Equity Employee Vesting Preferred Stock 56

This is going to be BIG.

JANUARY 10, 2021

They had raised nearly $2 million of venture capital money to hire an army of workers whose job it was to mindlessly stare at images all day and no one asked about working conditions or if the existence of this company and others like it had costly societal consequences. “No other VC asked questions like this.”

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Cap Table Accredited Investor Silicon Valley 150