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Remind Me Why I Love You? (Why “In Person” is Everything)

Both Sides of the Table

I also had to negotiate a follow-on round at a portfolio company because new investors were trying to force a bit option-pool top-up that would dilute the founders and existing shareholders and existing investors were fighting over prorata rights. Wednesday I have 4 companies coming in to talk about their companies.

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2022 Predictions

Eric Friedman

The calculus is that if the stock is going to be worth a fortune, they are better off paying for expertise early vs. take a risk on early full time employees risking option pool, culture fit, and ramp time. 5/ the US power grid becomes a focus point for conversation from a major disruption due to an attack. .

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Why offering employee equity is crucial for your startup

The Next Web

During the first conversation with a given founder about employee equity, it is not uncommon for the CEO to fire back with the following question: Why would I give any equity to my employees? In one instance, I told a CEO that we typically recommend a 15 percent stock options pool at seed/Series A stage.

Equity 154
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Founders Should Set Aside More Equity for Their Team & “Split the Pain” With Investors

Hunter Walker

But employee option pool is important enough that I wanted to briefly expand upon my comment above. ” To me these types of conversations, when backed by a hiring plan, show real maturity and proactively valuing the construction of a high quality team. As you can see, Weekend VC Twitter gets pretty wild and crazy!!!!

Equity 94
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What is it Like to Negotiate a VC Round?

Both Sides of the Table

I am reminded of this problem every time my firm does a financing where a note went before us but more specifically I was reminded by this great post by Brad Feld to talk about the pre-money vs. post-money conversion issue. How much is in the option pool? It’s worth reading his post to understand the problem.

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How to Divide Founder Equity: 4 Criteria to Discuss

View from Seed

But delaying or avoiding the conversation often results in it being more awkward than it needs to be. You don’t really need to worry about how much common stock will be set aside for an employee option pool or how much preferred stock might be issued from raising future VC rounds in order to determine an equitable founder stock division.

Equity 315
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Unintended Consequences: When SAFE and Convertible Notes Go Awry

Pascal's View

However, many VCs experience vexing discussions with CEOs, and many CEOs belatedly realize that this is because they made a mistake: issuing multiple series of notes at various valuation caps without actually sitting down and figuring out the pro forma post-conversion equity ownership.