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Startup Stock Options – Why A Good Deal Has Gone Bad

Steve Blank

We slept under the tables, and pulled all-nighters to get to first customer ship, man the booths at trade shows or ship products to make quarterly revenue – all because it was “our” company. Not everyone got the same amount of stock. The founders got most of the common stock. Today, that’s not true.

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Why Uber is The Revenge of the Founders

Steve Blank

Twenty-five years ago, to go public you had to sell stuff – not just acquire users or have freemium products. People had to actually pay you for your product. This required a repeatable and scalable sales process, which required a professional sales staff and a product stable enough that customers wouldn’t return it.

Founder 245
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Flexible VC, a New Model for Companies Targeting Profitability

David Teten

Eligible for favorable treatment under Qualified Small Business Stock exemption, if structured as equity. This applies if the investment converts into common stock; details are beyond this essay’s scope. That said, nothing is cost-free. More complex cost of capital calculation. Founder retains control.

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How Startup Valuations are Driving Company Equity

ReadWriteStart

Common stock. The holding of common stock in a company indicates ownership in the corporation. Investors of common stock are eligible for : The choice of the Board of Directors. However, the holder of a warrant holds a leveraged bet on the corporation’s common shares. Preferred shares.

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Startup Funding – A Comprehensive Guide for Entrepreneurs

ReadWriteStart

You must have a prototype or a minimum viable product (MVP). To fund the sudden spike in production, funds will be required for additional inventory and wages. It is going to cost a lot of money just to get the initial batch of products to test the market and would definitely require external funding. Inception stage.

Startup 150
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Who Should be on Your Startup Board?

Both Sides of the Table

If angel investors are pressuring you to set up a board and if you don’t have the leverage to push back a little then I might suggest a 3-person board in which all 3 seats are appointed by the common stock and you agree to appoint one of these seats to the angel investor but perhaps make it either time based or event based.

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Cliff Notes S-1: Kayak ? AGILEVC

Agile VC

Kayak was started here in my backyard of Boston… co-founder & CTO Paul English and the product/engineering team is based here in Concord MA. 5) High Productivity: Kayak had 148 employees at the end of 2010. One can infer valuations based on per share prices of preferred stock and oustanding common shares (~5.3M