Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2017

As a startup in this phase you often raise capital, get press, hire staff and everything feels possible. As an early-stage VC I love this phase. I always push companies to hire “an operationally focused CFO” during this phase because in order to systematize you need somebody who brings economic rigor to decision making.

Operations 286

Operations New York City Technical Review Startup 286

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 14, 2012

To learn more about how your startup can find, hire and keep the top talent and quality workers it needs to succeed, download this free ReadWriteWeb Report: The Talent Wars: Today’s Toughest Startup Challenge. And you need to do it sooner rather than later. So what does it actually take to build a kickass startup team?

Technical Review 159

Technical Review CTO Hire Software Review Startup 159

Up and Running

JULY 28, 2022

Small Business Administration , an organization is considered to be a small business if their: Firm revenue ranges from $1 million to $40 million Number of employees is between 100 and 1,500. You’ll need the EIN to pay taxes for your business, apply for licenses and permits, open a bank account, and hire and pay employees.

Small Business 167

Small Business Intellectual Property Cofounder Software Review 167

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 10, 2016

Early stage burn rates over $50K per month, or a runway of less than six months may indicate an inefficient or desperate startup. If the company has been around for more than a couple of years, and still has no product or revenue flow, there better be a good explanation. Think twice before you jump in.

Sweat Equity 120

Sweat Equity Burn Rate Technical Review Intellectual Property 120

OnlyOnce

AUGUST 3, 2023

(Post 1 of 4 in the series of Scaling CPO’s) In most startups, the HR function starts out as tactical, because you have to get people hired and paid, and while you might have a founder or early-stage employee who can do these things, often these tasks are frequently outsourced to a PEO.

Hiring 62

Hiring Metrics Leadership Early Stage 62

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 8, 2015

Early stage burn rates over $50K per month, or a runway of less than six months may indicate an inefficient or desperate startup. If the company has been around for more than a couple of years, and still has no product or revenue flow, there better be a good explanation. Think twice before you jump in.

Technical Review 120

Technical Review Due Diligence Sweat Equity Burn Rate 120

Steve Blank

MARCH 17, 2020

And how much are variable expenses (salaries, consultants, commission, travel, AWS/Azure charges, supplies, etc.?). Next, take a look at your actual revenue each month – not forecast, but real revenue coming in each month. If you’re an early stage company, that number may be zero. The World Turned Upside Down.

Burn Rate 436

Burn Rate Startup Valuation Sales Cycle 436

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2013

My internal compass has always steered me strongly toward the belief that founders who can scale with their startup companies are better to back that founders who eventually need to hire a CEO. For the entire first year after I funded the company he refused to take a salary and I had to admonish him to make sure he paid his expenses.

Technical Review 303

Technical Review Cofounder Analytics Founder 303

Austin Startup

MAY 8, 2018

Background reading: Founder Compensation: Cash, Equity, Liquidity Fatal Errors in Early Startup Hiring Early Hires: Options or Stock Given how deeply involved we are with early-stage startups hiring their first key employees, I figured it would be helpful to outline a few key principles to help entrepreneurs navigate the topic.

Employee 48

Employee Seed Stage Startup Equity 48

David Teten

JANUARY 21, 2021

This essay is part of a series on alternative VC: I: Revenue-Based Investing: a new option for founders who care about control. II: Who are the major Revenue-Based Investing VCs? III: Why are Revenue-Based VCs investing in so many women and underrepresented founders? IV: Should your new VC fund use Revenue-Based Investing?

Equity 78

Equity Revenue Cofounder Colorado 78

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

FEBRUARY 21, 2011

The question is further complicated when the new hire is getting a salary. Typically the salary is less than market with the balance given in the form of equity, but again how do you compute that when the stock is, today, of no value? Here’s a simple framework for how to come up with those numbers.

Equity 276

Equity Salary Hiring Institutional Investors 276

OnlyOnce

MARCH 14, 2011

We all knew if the feature or function that the client was asking for was within the realm of the possible. • We were very, very focused on creating customers and revenue —We were a startup. If we drove revenue above costs, we got to take home a salary. It was stressful, but productively stressful and fun.

Software Review 67

Software Review Development Team Review Later Stage Technical Review 67

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 13, 2013

By the way, the salary, which was a good salary, was $27,000 entry salary, and engineers were paid $31,000 to $35,000. [00:10:30] You’ve got entrepreneurs and founders who are really – a lot of them are in the very early stage of their startup. Should I hire or not hire this person?

Cofounder 337

Cofounder Technical Cofounder Startup San Diego 337

Austin Startup

AUGUST 20, 2017

Early stage startups have to survive one day at a time and are often presented with limited choices of the moment that enable them to continue. Hiring is a chapter unto itself, but it deserves to lead off any discussion of context. Compensation decisions obviously affect hiring and retention.

Technical Review 48

Technical Review Software Review Cap Table Securities and Exchange Commission 48

ConversionXL

MAY 27, 2022

Only around 10–15% of B2B leads turn into paying customers, and it’s because tactics optimizing for the early stages of the funnel only cater to early-stage goals. It’s their job to implement a holistic approach to growth that encompasses both marketing and sales and looks at every stage of the buyer’s journey.

Demand 95

Demand Management B2B Campaign 95

K9 Ventures

APRIL 9, 2014

Threshold for an IPO is higher Ten years ago, if you had $20M in revenue you were ready to go public. If you have <$100M in revenue, you’re probably going to stay private. Hiring costs are up dramatically The cost of hiring top quality talent in the bay area has gone up dramatically.

Mezzanine 134

Mezzanine Seed Stage Early Stage IPO 134

Transformify

AUGUST 27, 2017

All of the above is true, but it is also true that many startups have failed because they hired too early, too fast, or fired too late. Many of the points below can be found among the best hiring practices for startups and there is nothing wrong with them in general. Then the hiring begins. Hire full-time employees.

Hiring 64

Hiring Software Review Burn Rate Startup 64

socialmatchbox.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

If you post up an ad to an online job board asking for someone to join your very high risk early stage startup company the odds of getting someone who decent are slim to none. at this stage. The generally accepted hourly wage calculation used by the staffing industry is Annual Salary divided by 2000 Hours.

Part-Time VPE 41

Part-Time VPE Sweat Equity DC Washington 41

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

SEPTEMBER 4, 2012

I mean, it’s easy to talk to very little bands and just say I feel like the amount of revenue for you is very little. Like with more people who are not taking salary, you can literally do twice as much. And that’s really important for an early stage start-up to be able to move as fast as possible etc.,

Cofounder 199

Cofounder Technical Review Chicago Technical Cofounder 199

The Next Web

DECEMBER 30, 2013

In January, Denver will become one of the few American cities that allows its residents to purchase and recreationally consume marijuana, a move that is expected to create jobs and generate tax revenue. The result is a rapidly-growing local tech economy: tech hiring is among the highest in the nation at 1.7 percent.

Denver 166

Denver Silicon Valley San Jose Colorado 166

Up and Running

OCTOBER 24, 2016

The allure of this narrative is obvious: the smartest kids in the room get to hire their friends and build a company with other people’s money. The goal for a lifestyle business is to build sustainable revenue streams that are set up to operate on their own. Minimal hiring. Source: CB Insights. A clear end goal.

Startup 60

Startup Venture Capital Salary Equity 60

www.forentrepreneurs.com

FEBRUARY 2, 2010

To compute the cost to acquire a customer, CAC, you would take your entire cost of sales and marketing over a given period, including salaries and other headcount related expenses, and divide it by the number of customers that you acquired in that period. (In Most of the public companies like Salesforce.com, ConstantContact, etc.,

Acquisition 103

Acquisition Cost Customer Entrepreneur 103

www.startupnorth.ca

OCTOBER 23, 2010

But for every founder, there is an early employee that takes near equal risks in joining an early-stage company. Being an early hire at a startup gives an individual the ability to make tremendous impact on an organization as it grows – and both the founders and those hires should know it.”

Employee 41

Employee Founder Salary Equity 41

Hunter Walker

MARCH 16, 2024

I’m generally skeptical of early stage startups trying to work closely with large platforms , but I understand why the opportunities are tough to pass up. HW: Your initial wedge was/is a virtual nametags products , but you’ve seen even faster revenue growth with the second product, a warm leads sales tool.

Cofounder 99

Cofounder Early Stage Salary Hiring 99

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 12, 2010

You put some update slides on things like key hires or biz dev deals being negotiated and you didn’t plan to talk about them. Most people in really early stage companies send out board packs the day before the meeting or if you’re luck 2 days before. You didn’t intend it to happen that way.

Startup 331

Startup Balance Sheet Forecast Early Stage 331

ReadWriteStart

SEPTEMBER 30, 2010

To replace them, employers spend $11,500 average per healthcare employee acquisition cost (20% of the annualized salary plus hiring incentives is considered customary for acquisition cost). There is no available simple or inexpensive way for employer and employee to find each other except through Monster-type services.

India 115

India Silicon Valley Incubator Bootstrapping 115

Austin Startup

MAY 19, 2018

 —  @birsic So without further ado, here are my thoughts on some dos and don’ts for early stage investors. Most of the time we are being told no by somebody whether it’s prospects, investors, or hires who aren’t willing to take the risk at a startup. Wonder why that is ?? Get excited (and show it!)

Founder 75

Founder Early Stage Software Review Deal Flow 75

BeyondVC

JANUARY 2, 2006

From a philosophical point of view, I view compensation as the combination of salary, bonus (if any), and equity. On a public company board, for example, I look at other companies that we compete with and other businesses that are in a similar stage of revenue growth and financial numbers.

Management 60

Management Equity Forecast Salary 60

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 21, 2012

By being a part of the conversation, you just might catch the attention of a startup that’s hiring. Don’t wait to see a job posting : Actual startup job postings may not show up for quite some time, especially among those in the early stage. It’s a bold move, one that got him noticed, and hired, by the startup.

Hiring 196

Hiring Startup Open Source API 196

maplebutter.com

JANUARY 8, 2013

You are here: Home » Hiring » Crazy! Written By Dan Martell on February 2nd, 2012 | Category: Hiring LeanStartup Marketing Metrics Startup Life | 6 Comments. I would focus on one product and set a goal to generate $1M in yearly revenue from it. Ability to hire top talent (A+ talent). you can hire for those.

Technical Review 44

Technical Review Startup Cofounder Software Review 44

www.paulgraham.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

One of the best tricks I learned during our startup was a rule for deciding who to hire. And when businesspeople try to hire hackers, they cant tell which ones are good.Even other hackers have a hard time doing that. When we got real funding nearthe end of 1996, we hired a great CFO, who fixed everything retroactively.

Startup 105

Startup Cofounder Software Stock 105

YoungUpstarts

JANUARY 19, 2017

Headcount and hiring. If your company is growing and you’re writing checks, you eventually get to the point where you’re looking at hiring more people just to keep up with this manual task. There’s the cost of that person’s salary, taxes and benefits, and time spent interviewing and training.

Cofounder 100

Cofounder Stock Cost B2B 100

Up and Running

MAY 14, 2019

Staffing is another common concern; most nonprofits don’t have the budget to match salaries in the for-profit sector. It can be challenging to get a good enough handle on your cash flow to feel confident that you can afford to add a new hire salary to your budget to begin with.

Networking 99

Networking Egypt Advisory Board Salary 99

www.paulgraham.com

APRIL 28, 2010

There never has to be atime when you have no revenues. 4 ] Seed Funding Firms Seed firms are like angels in that they invest relatively smallamounts at early stages, but like VCs in that theyre companiesthat do it as a business, rather than individuals making occasionalinvestments on the side. So theyre going to raise $200,000.

Technical Review 76

Technical Review Startup Software Review Angel Investor 76

Small Business Force

JULY 7, 2016

Whether you’re about to hire your first salesperson, add to your existing staff or plan to re-start your sales organization, here are five essential requirements for maximizing your efforts and getting early and positive results. Interviewing, hiring and managing expectations. So you have to be ready for that.

Sales 27

Sales Hiring Forecast Salary 27

Up and Running

NOVEMBER 25, 2015

Jonathan: I think we talked about this on a previous podcast with regards to when is it time to hire somebody else on your team. Peter: If you hit a point where it may be difficult to pay salaries out or something like that, you know, often times it’s the business owner takes the first cut. How did they only get to number five?

Texas 60

Texas Small Business San Antonio New Hampshire 60

www.singlefounder.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

Go ahead and laugh, but over 95% of Moon River Software’s revenue this year has been from consulting services. The software I sell has made up less than 5% of total revenue in the past 12 months. In the early stages of a company, this can be critical. So, yes I think I had ample justification for getting an office.

Software Review 40

Software Review Software Startup Massachusetts 40