Hunter Walker

FEBRUARY 15, 2023

Claire got to experience, and played a large part in, Stripe’s proverbial rocketship, blossoming into thousands of employees, generating billions of dollars in revenue and valuation. While at the company — and especially once she departed — Claire became one of the people I always hoped to add to a cap table or startup board.

Cap Table 75

Cap Table Hiring Viral Valuation 75

Hunter Walker

AUGUST 1, 2021

That was the first day that current and former employees could cash out all of their shares after the company went public. Those of us who’ve had access to the right hiring manager, or cap table, or referral network have already put ourselves in a position to capitalize, but the pie can be expanded.

Silicon Valley 124

Silicon Valley Cap Table IPO .Net 124

VC Adventure

AUGUST 15, 2018

It was a benefit to employees and a slight value transfer from equity holders to option holders (generally speaking in M&A transactions the value of the aggregate option exercise ends up allocated across the rest of the cap table).

Valuation 48

Valuation Common Stock Cap Table Software Review 48

Hunter Walker

JUNE 25, 2022

And it’s with your first hires that your intended culture will be solidified, evolved, mutated, or challenged. Coinbase, which has been quite aggressive in defining what’s expected of you , isn’t my cup of tea, but I can still appreciate the clarity they are providing for potential employees. Code can be rewritten.

Cap Table 96

Cap Table Matching Hiring Business Model 96

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 118

Early Stage Cap Table Acquisition Sales 118

Altgate

JUNE 25, 2012

. —————– Dead equity — equity held by employees and founders no longer working at the company — is a large and growing problem. One who attracted much attention is David Choe, the graffiti artist hired to paint the company’s first headquarters. A Significant – and Growing – Problem.

Equity 44

Equity Vesting Cap Table Technical Review 44

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

Up and Running

SEPTEMBER 20, 2021

This is all incorporated into a document called a Cap Table. . A cap table will help you in the strategic management of business decisions. Wondering what a cap table is, its importance, and how you can maintain it to expand your business? What is a cap table? Let’s dive in.

Cap Table 112

Cap Table Pre-Money Valuation Stock Options Option Pool 112

Altgate

AUGUST 25, 2012

. —————– Dead equity — equity held by employees and founders no longer working at the company — is a large and growing problem. One who attracted much attention is David Choe, the graffiti artist hired to paint the company’s first headquarters. A Significant – and Growing – Problem.

Equity 28

Equity Vesting Cap Table Technical Review 28

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. Communications with New Board & Investors Ensure all of your investors have all legal documentation of the round, including an electronic version of the final cap table. You’ve just closed your seed round.

Founder 156

Founder Cap Table Stock Options PR 156

keen.io

FEBRUARY 5, 2013

From there, I began googling things like “first employee startup equity” and “startup offer negotiation.” These were the best resources I found: Equity for Early Employees in Early Stage Startups. Startup Equity for Early Employees. We had a big team meeting, with all three founders and all three potential new employees.

Salary 50

Salary Equity Startup San Francisco 50

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 26, 2014

It allows you to truly focus on your product/idea instead of cap tables and keeping investors happy. If you don’t want to bring in a partner, hire someone to fill in your “business gaps”, because it is exhausting to try to do everything yourself and invariably whatever you’re not comfortable doing won’t get done for the business.

Cap Table 162

Cap Table Bootstrapping Naming America 162

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 21, 2010

Forget to get around to setting up that Employee Stock Option Plan and want to be able to give the early guys their options at a low strike price? I know he’s smart but you wouldn’t hire a Javascript developer to do your database design – would you? Shame about that pesky FAS 157 ruling. Here’s a hack for you.

Southern California 318

Southern California Silicon Valley IP Stock Options 318

David Teten

AUGUST 19, 2019

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”. Jared Weitz, Founder & CEO, said, “[Our] typical RBF client is $120K-$20M in annual revenue, with 4-200 employees.

Revenue 60

Revenue Technical Review Software Review Equity 60

adamac.blogspot.com

MARCH 9, 2010

Adam MacBeth Tuesday, April 07, 2009 10 Startup Red Flags Ive worked on a number of startups: from seed-stage through IPO, as a founder, employee, advisor, and consultant, as well as evaluating a bunch from the outside, so Ive seen my share of screw-ups. Adamac Attack! Either way, its a sign that something is amiss. leadership) problem.

Technical Review 41

Technical Review CTO Hire Fractional CTO Startup 41

Ben's Blog

APRIL 1, 2011

Organizational design, process design, metrics, hiring and firing were all relatively straightforward skills to master compared to keeping my mind in check. I remember when I first became CEO, an investor asked me to send him the “cap table.” What if I was misleading everyone from investors to employees?

Management 78

Management Cap Table Balance Sheet Bankruptcy 78

Haystack

AUGUST 18, 2019

You lose influence as larger investors come into the cap table and start throwing their weight around. Many of these new data-driven funds are hiring experienced VCs across early stages and building outposts in the Bay Area. You lose way more than you win. You wait the longest for liquidity. It is where most people start out.

Seed Stage 108

Seed Stage Cap Table Early Stage Malaysia 108

BeyondVC

NOVEMBER 17, 2016

West coast founders now fully understand why having a NYC investor on their cap table pays huge dividends and west coast VCs are regularly leading Series A and B rounds in NYC. We continue to have the courage to be first on your cap table and the conviction to move swiftly to close rounds.

Cap Table 60

Cap Table Cofounder Dividend Institutional Investors 60

Feld Thoughts

JULY 5, 2015

There was one construct that bothered me – Geis’ use of the phrase “acqui-hire” and his effort to categorize acquisitions as acquihires, ACQUI-hires, acqui-HIRES, and ACQUI-HIRES. Dodgeball.com: But really…When a public company with a market cap of $64.1

Acquisition 70

Acquisition Cap Table Framework Retention 70

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. In a way, that’s like having a free analyst at your disposal. I’m sure you’re very smart and very experienced.

Portfolio 134

Portfolio Syndicate Syndication Deal Flow 134

www.payne.org

SEPTEMBER 22, 2011

Startup Equity For Employees. 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. one year) can cause employees to do unnatural career acts to make it to the next big vesting event.

Equity 56

Equity Employee Vesting Preferred Stock 56

genylabs.typepad.com

SEPTEMBER 24, 2011

I wont bother going into details on start-up financing terms ( see this post for an overview of typical VC terms) except to say if you dont know and understand: the firms cap table and valuation. Have not met anyone I wanted to hire who was willing to work for equity. what kind of stock you are getting. what your rights are.

Equity 40

Equity Technical Review San Jose Stock 40

Hunter Walker

AUGUST 26, 2022

I tried to get hired at Better Place and failed. When I learned they were hiring a community manager, I threw everything I had at the interview process. Box had just 50 employees and was hitting an inflection point when I joined in 2009, so there was far more work to do than people to do it. Enter Box. They gave me a shot.

IPO 91

IPO Cofounder Early Stage Portfolio 91

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 23, 2017

EShares is an increasingly popular tool in our portfolio for tracking private company cap tables. Over the past few years, ff Venture Capital hired two full-time engineers to build out its internal technology stack, called Totem. Kushim , Totem , and VisibleVC focus on serving this need among VCs.

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Technical Review 60

Hunter Walker

JANUARY 20, 2015

There’s appropriate debate around whether the concept is true enough to turn into a hiring principle and if the concept celebrates the individual at the expense of the team. You can reference check angels just like you would VCs or employees. Or they suggest advisors, contractors or potential hires that might have more time.

Cap Table 48

Cap Table Warrant Syndicate Syndication 48

The Next Web

OCTOBER 7, 2013

They were referring to non-founder engineers, most commonly the first hire for technology businesses. From the perspective of my outside friends, why are employees that so clearly impact the growth trajectory of a company look like they’re getting screwed? Cap tables sound intimidating. That is your opportunity cost.

Engineer 129

Engineer Dilution Option Pool Vesting 129

David Teten

DECEMBER 3, 2019

Point Nine Capital uses 15Five for continuous employee feedback. 645 Ventures released a cap table simulator to help level the playing field. ff Venture Capital hired two full-time engineers to build out Totem. Capital has built a free online tool for founders to calculate their cost of capital.

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Software Review Analytics Private Equity 78

venturehacks.com

SEPTEMBER 22, 2011

Paul says, “Whenever you’re trading stock in your company for anything, whether it’s money or an employee or a deal with another company, the test for whether to do it is the same. Consider the opportunity cost of spending shares on employees and investors. We previously posted a table of market rates for employees.

Equity 40

Equity Cap Table Valuation RSS 40

David Teten

OCTOBER 1, 2015

intrapreneurs, e.g., the employee of GE who is tasked with launching a new business. In those cases, the incentives for the founders and early employees are extraordinarily hard to align long term. 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

blog.simeonov.com

FEBRUARY 22, 2010

This can be a convenient shortcut to separate someone’s status (founder) from their role (employee or contractor or advisor, etc.) They have voting rights which may entitle them to force or veto certain key decisions, e.g., hiring or firing the CEO, selling the company, raising money, etc. Which founder agreement?

Founder 44

Founder Vesting Agile Startup 44

This is going to be BIG.

NOVEMBER 16, 2023

That’s how it feels when your hot deal from two years ago winds up running low on cash and gets into a pay-to-play round that wipes out the cap table. Your Series A and beyond companies are generally hitting their stride right out of the gate, especially around sales, gtm and hiring top tier candidates. You have outcomes.

Non-Compete 97

Non-Compete Cofounder Cap Table Reputation 97

www.paulgraham.com

APRIL 28, 2010

The reason is that employees are investors too—oftheir time—and they want just as much to be able to cash out. Ifyour competitors offer employees stock options that might make themrich, while you make it clear you plan to stay private, yourcompetitors will get the best people. Theres only common stock at this stage.

Technical Review 76

Technical Review Startup Software Review Angel Investor 76

venturehacks.com

FEBRUARY 24, 2010

The best sellers can sell to customers, partners, investors, and employees. Geeks can always be hired. Got hire a geek to get your code done, and after you’ve got the first round of clients, work on insourcing the developers and building a scalable version. Learn more. Our Bookstore See our recommendations.

Cofounder 101

Cofounder Founder Technical Cofounder Technical Review 101

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 11, 2019

So the other thing is how you look out for a firm that’s really only trying to hire a woman to check the box against a list of things that they need to fulfill versus looking for you, with all of your expertise and the things you know, and putting the right resources behind you to make sure you're successful.

Founder 68

Founder Lean Venture Capital Cofounder 68

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 9, 2020

He also has strongly held ideas about structuring a company to institutionalize these intentions to make sure the next leader, future employees, and the next board will be true to that philosophy. 47:49) Brian on the letter he wrote to employees to announce the layoffs and the response to it. (50:17) 6,000, 7,000 employees.

Silicon Valley 60

Silicon Valley Hosting Cofounder Employee 60

venturehacks.com

MARCH 21, 2008

Or they bring you a handful of great employees. Advisor compensation Whether you’re hiring a normal advisor or super advisor: Advisory shares are usually issued as common stock options. They’ll bring you leads for customers, employees, and investors. Super advisors help make your company happen. Learn more.

Advisory Board 44

Advisory Board Cap Table Vesting Equity 44

venturehacks.com

OCTOBER 21, 2010

Use a hiring plan to justify a small option pool, increase your share price, and increase your effective valuation. As your lawyer explains that the so-called pre-money valuation always includes a large unallocated option pool for new employees, your stomach sinks. Solution: Use a hiring plan to size the option pool.

Option Pool 68

Option Pool Pre-Money Valuation Dilution Warrant 68