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

Up and Running

JULY 2, 2014

You can’t underestimate the importance of selecting an attorney who “gets” your business model, your market opportunity, and most importantly, your fundraising and exit strategy. This should be clearly spelled out in your Capitalization Table , or “Cap Table” as it’s commonly called. Our attorney should have known.

Technical Review 118

Technical Review Angel Investor Due Diligence Dilution 118

Hunter Walker

SEPTEMBER 5, 2021

Startup CEOs Should Test Strength of Cap Table Every ~6 Months To Know Where They Stand. Since things are going well, our collective belief is that a few more milestones will be rewarded by the market, so let’s push further. Lastly, Jason has a single very practical suggestion on what to do if your cap table is tapped out.

Cap Table 95

Cap Table Seed Stage Syndicate Syndication 95

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

VC Adventure

AUGUST 15, 2018

As is true today, there was a requirement that options be priced at or above the “fair market value” of the underlying stock (otherwise there would be tax consequences to the optionee and sometimes to the company as well).

Valuation 48

Valuation Common Stock Cap Table Software Review 48

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2018

When you raise money from investors you produce information that you are told they want and care about: A fund-raising deck that articulates your company strategy, plans, team, market, competitors and so forth. 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?

Cap Table 336

Cap Table Due Diligence Forecast Churn Rate 336

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

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 22, 2010

Due to competitive markets we ended up with a pretty good term sheet until we needed to raise money in April 2001 and then we got completely screwed. You’ll need to hire and retain talen to grow your company. It was accept the terms or go into bankruptcy so we took the money. The VC assumes you’ll have an option pool.

Valuation 405

Valuation Liquidation Preference Pre-Money Valuation Term Sheet 405

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

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 we had just had massive challenges trying to move money to the different contractors we were hiring in different places.

IPO 113

IPO Cofounder Technical Review Government 113

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

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

View from Seed

MAY 29, 2019

Today, we are seeing less syndication of seed rounds and sharper elbows among many of the funds in the market. This segment of the market is basically mirroring other segments of the venture ecosystem which has operated this way for some time. Similarly, the seed market is beginning to look like this too.

Syndicate 267

Syndicate Syndication Cofounder Cap Table 267

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

Hunter Walker

JUNE 14, 2018

Information, relationships, pattern matching for marketplaces, SaaS, financial services, agriculture, media, etc etc – our backgrounds and/or portfolio suggest that we might have ability to help the founders move faster and with greater accuracy in testing their market hypotheses.

Cap Table 81

Cap Table Portfolio Vertical Reputation 81

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

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

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

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. On the other hand, this was new territory for the founders as well; they had zero experience making offers to new startup hires. So I knew a little bit. I knew enough to know I wanted to join a startup.

Salary 50

Salary Equity Startup San Francisco 50

techcrunch.com

APRIL 26, 2013

That way, startups only have one entity in the cap table, which simplifies documentation and structure. And what AngelList is doing differs from the crowdfunding market, with the criteria for startup participation and the requirement to be an accredited investor. The site is also a data goldmine.

SEC 61

SEC Accredited Investor San Diego New York City 61

David Teten

AUGUST 19, 2019

The mode purpose for funding is (in order of frequency) Sales, Marketing, Market Expansion, Product Development, and Hiring Employees. We provide revenue-based funding and business acceleration support to service-based small businesses located outside of major capital markets such as Silicon Valley and New York City.”. “We

Revenue 60

Revenue Technical Review Software Review Equity 60

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? Consider it a sales & marketing expense for them. But I don’t have money to pay a fancy lawyer – I’ll just have my cousin do it - Don’t. Here’s a hack for you.

Southern California 318

Southern California Silicon Valley IP Stock Options 318

Haystack

AUGUST 18, 2019

If you’ve been following my tweets lately, you’ve read some of my quick musings on the state of the seed market this summer. years is not a long arc – I have not experienced a prolonged down market as a private investor. We know private markets hold the key to 100x or even 1,000x multiples. In short, in my 6.5

Seed Stage 108

Seed Stage Cap Table Early Stage Malaysia 108

David Teten

OCTOBER 1, 2015

I’ve been looking for suggestions for an initial deal structure that is appropriate for the theoretical case of a trusted dev shop putting in $100k in market-value of services over a 6 month period in time. Accounting for those resources as “investment” at fair market value is a pretty straightforward way to value contribution.

Software Developers 60

Software Developers Software Development Software Review Technical Cofounder 60

venturehacks.com

FEBRUARY 24, 2010

It’s more important than your product, market, and investors. 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. All our products Pitching Hacks , Cap Table , and Co-founder Interview.

Cofounder 101

Cofounder Founder Technical Cofounder Technical Review 101

Genuine VC

MAY 20, 2013

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. At the early stages, the primary investment thesis rests on the team, rather than the idea or market (which are less unique and more easily fungible).

Venture Capital 244

Venture Capital Cap Table Portfolio Early Stage 244

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 23, 2017

The extreme example of this are algorithmic investors in the public markets, who design algorithms which trade on the designer’s behalf, as opposed to making trading decisions directly. High-frequency trading, algorithmic by its nature, is estimated to account for at least 50% of US equity markets trading volume. . 1) Market fund.

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Technical Review 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

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

adamac.blogspot.com

MARCH 9, 2010

Maybe the CEO got his cousin from Omaha to be their lawyer or theres been some serious messing around with the cap table. It follows that an "idea guy" who "just needs to hire a few engineers" probably isnt running a tech startup. Hiring is one of the main things a startup must get right, but contract recruiters arent the way.

Technical Review 41

Technical Review CTO Hire Fractional CTO Startup 41

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. They had a great managment team, A list VCs, great technology, excellent sales traction and market leadership in a very exciting space.

Equity 40

Equity Technical Review San Jose Stock 40

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 Dodgeball.com.

Acquisition 70

Acquisition Cap Table Framework Retention 70

OnlyOnce

FEBRUARY 9, 2022

The key points in the pitch deck we created were: There is a gap in the market of investors adding “management” value to portfolio companies between Accelerators/Incubators/Studios at the low end and Private Equity firms and very large VCs at the high end. “The We needed another senior leader to join our team. 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

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

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

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.” —The Geto Boys, Mind Playing Tricks on Me.

Management 78

Management Cap Table Balance Sheet Bankruptcy 78