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

OnlyOnce

MAY 26, 2022

Post 4 of 4 in the series on Scaling CFOs – other posts are How to Engage with Your CFO , When it is Time to Hire Your First Chief Financial Officer , and What Does “Great” Look Like in a CFO? ). Do you spend a lot of your time dealing with finance-related issues like fundraising, debt, investors, or cap table questions?

Cap Table 62

Cap Table Forecast Finance Metrics 62

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

keen.io

FEBRUARY 5, 2013

And if the CEO says, “Salaries will be adjusted to market value soon,” that’s probably a best-case scenario. To begin answering this question, I started on a quest to understand startup financing. On the other hand, this was new territory for the founders as well; they had zero experience making offers to new startup hires.

Salary 50

Salary Equity Startup San Francisco 50

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. CRM Magazine: 2011 CRM Market Leaders.

Equity 40

Equity Technical Review San Jose Stock 40

www.informationarbitrage.com

FEBRUARY 24, 2010

Read more » Recent Press The New York Times April 22, 2009 - A Company Plans to Market Illiquid Assets CNBC.com April 8, 2008 - Social Stock Picking Reuters April 6, 2009 - Bit.ly But sometimes, too often, the CTO falls back on hiring a friend or someone to whom they were introduced that sells them on their value-added.

CTO Hire 40

CTO Hire Founder Cap Table Vesting 40

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

OnlyOnce

FEBRUARY 9, 2022

On the heels of the announcement we made last month about our Series B financing , we are now announcing the launch of a new program called Bolster Prime and a new venture capital fund called Bolster Ventures. Brad’s visceral response in this conversation was a very clear, “you should hire Jenny.” Enter Jenny Lawton.

Silicon Valley 62

Silicon Valley Venture Capital Cap Table Early Stage 62

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. Setting The Option Strike Price Above Fair Market Value.

Equity 98

Equity Vesting Cap Table Common Stock 98

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. The first was in July of 2014, when we made the unusual move of raising and announcing another round of private financing while on file to go public. Enter Box.

IPO 91

IPO Cofounder Early Stage Portfolio 91

Spencer Fry

APRIL 17, 2017

It wasn’t enough at the end of 2015 to have a working prototype and a handful of customers to somehow take over the market. Without raising money, 1 of 2 situations would have fallen upon us: I would have had to dig deeper into my own pockets to continue to pay the contractor as well as hire others. Hello, debt. Something has to give.

Bootstrapping 63

Bootstrapping Cap Table Liquidation Preference Cofounder 63

David Teten

DECEMBER 3, 2019

In liquid markets, most of the calories expended on technology and analytics are focused on trade selection, or “ origination ”. I use another live Google doc to maintain my database of companies I’m marketing to other VCs. 2) Market . Many tools designed for B2B marketing in general are also relevant to investors.

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Software Review Analytics Private Equity 78

The Next Web

OCTOBER 7, 2013

They were referring to non-founder engineers, most commonly the first hire for technology businesses. Cap tables sound intimidating. It is typical for employees to vest their options over four years with a one year cliff, which means a new hire must stay on the company for at least one year to see any shares.

Engineer 129

Engineer Dilution Option Pool Vesting 129

Hunter Walker

SEPTEMBER 5, 2021

Startup CEOs Should Test Strength of Cap Table Every ~6 Months To Know Where They Stand. As a venture fund I might have a strategy which says “for every dollar I invest into companies, I will hold one dollar in reserve for additional financings.” Instead my recommendation is to ask every ~6 months or so in-between financings.

Cap Table 95

Cap Table Seed Stage Syndicate Syndication 95

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. If your current salary is low relative to the market, you may be able to match or even increase your salary. 3 Dilution.

Equity 56

Equity Employee Vesting Preferred Stock 56

Genuine VC

MAY 20, 2013

Compared to most other areas of finance, venture capital is practiced as more of an art, as opposed to a science. VCs who swear publicly that they’ll never make an investment with less than 20% ownership show up on cap tables in the teens… the 20% pronouncements are just posturing for negotiation.

Venture Capital 244

Venture Capital Cap Table Portfolio Early Stage 244

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

venturehacks.com

FEBRUARY 24, 2010

It’s more important than your product, market, and investors. Two founders works because unanimity is possible, there are no founder politics, interests can easily align, and founder stakes are high post-financing. Geeks can always be hired. All our products Pitching Hacks , Cap Table , and Co-founder Interview.

Cofounder 101

Cofounder Founder Technical Cofounder Technical Review 101

abovethecrowd.com

APRIL 20, 2016

Why the Unicorn Financing Market Just Became Dangerous…For All Involved. These mutual funds “mark-to-market” every day, and fund managers are compensated periodically on this performance. With the public markets down, these groups began writing down Unicorn valuations. Once more, the fantasy began to come apart.

IPO 40

IPO Term Sheet Silicon Valley Valuation 40

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. They can also get terminated if the company is “reset&# , e.g. You hired a video game expert because you were building a video game but now you’re building a photo sharing site.

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. Reading on, the term sheet states, “The $8 million pre-money valuation includes an option pool equal to 20% of the post-financing fully diluted capitalization.&# Solution: Use a hiring plan to size the option pool.

Option Pool 68

Option Pool Pre-Money Valuation Dilution Warrant 68

Austin Startup

MAY 17, 2017

Given that the time from formation to Series A has stretched out significantly for many companies in the market — due to pre-seed, seed, seed plus, seed premium, series seed, seed platinum diamond, whatever-you-want-to-call-not-Series A rounds. While not the norm, it’s also not terribly off market if a large check is being written.

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage Startup Cap Table Angel Investor 48

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 4, 2021

The company's market cap at the time of their entry into the public markets topped $100 billion dollars. It'd be great if we could somehow hire people all over the world, that would be great. And of course, I wasn't really interested in the finance side of it to me. And so, it had always been attractive to me.

IPO 113

IPO Cofounder Technical Review Government 113

abovethecrowd.com

JUNE 2, 2021

Marketing 101: Customers love free stuff. As a result, it is a common marketing practice to offer things “for free” in order to impact customer behavior or encourage customer loyalty. That’s why it is a tried and true marketing scheme. Warren Buffet, 1997. You know what customers like more than free stuff?

IPO 82

IPO Customer Matching Silicon Valley 82