Agile VC

APRIL 17, 2011

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. paying for travel data from ITA or others (customers acquisition spend is not included in COGS). 5) High Productivity: Kayak had 148 employees at the end of 2010.

Pre-Money Valuation 113

Pre-Money Valuation Liquidation Preference Dividend Common Stock 113

Steve Blank

MARCH 16, 2016

But startups require money upfront for product development and later to scale. For the first few years, your VCs want you to keep your head down, build the product, find product/market fit and ship to get to some inflection point (revenue, users, etc.). Congratulations, welcome to Customer Discovery. ——-.

Liquidity Event 120

Liquidity Event Founder Liquidation Preference Private Equity 120

The Equity Kicker

OCTOBER 22, 2012

That’s exciting and motivating for founders, and makes it easier to enlist support for your mission from investors, new employees and customers and will get you talked about on blogs and at cocktail parties. Big ambition should equate to a big opportunity to make a difference to the world and to make a lot of money. Powerful stuff.

Liquidation Preference 134

Liquidation Preference Distribution Web Conversion 134

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 23, 2015

Even when you do sign-up initial customers it’s still not clear that your company will be a success and you’re still likely paying yourself under market rates. But if you’re the Director or Product or VP of Marketing – you don’t get to make that decision. the standard 4-6% for a hired-gun CEO).

Technical Review 150

Technical Review Liquidation Preference Silicon Valley IP 150

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2013

And they might give a premium if the team has been around a longer period of time, has built some hard-to-build proprietary technology or has some customer traction. If the money comes from professional investors it usually has a “liquidation preference” meaning that their money comes out before the founders or common stock. (If

Liquidation Preference 357

Liquidation Preference Early Stage Retention Lock-up Period 357

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 21, 2010

Your contractor wrote a great V1 of the product and it helped you get angel funding. 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? You need to know how liquidations preferences work. You need to own your legal agreements.

Southern California 318

Southern California Silicon Valley IP Stock Options 318

Feld Thoughts

SEPTEMBER 9, 2015

Some will demonstrate strategically justifiable metrics and have fantastic ‘up round’ exits; others may see liquidation preferences kick in which will negatively impact founders and employees; others may fulfill the adage “IPO is the new down round” , which has been the case for more than half of the public companies on our list.

Liquidation Preference 70

Liquidation Preference Burn Rate Balance Sheet .Net 70