Steve Blank

APRIL 26, 2022

They offered desperate founders more cash but insisted on new terms, rewriting all the old stock agreements that previous investors and employees had. Some even insisted that all prior preferred stock had to be converted to common stock. W hy would any founder agree to this? You Have a Choice. You’re not.

Cram Down 404

Cram Down Founder Venture Capital Recapitalization 404

Steve Blank

JULY 11, 2017

After the director left, I must have looked pretty surprised as the CFO explained, “We have tens of thousands of employees, and at the rate we’re growing it’s almost impossible to keep up with our space needs in the Bay Area. The founders. Founders are comfortable in the chaos and disorder.

Part-Time VPE 308

Part-Time VPE Liquidity Event Stock Engineer 308

YoungUpstarts

JANUARY 10, 2020

by Zain Jaffer, serial entrepreneur and the Founder and CEO of Zain Ventures. The loss of these major customers can have a dramatic impact on both internal (employees) and external contributors (investors). Company culture may also be a contributing factor in the manner in which employees deal with hindrances.

Customer 347

Customer Development Team Review Advisory Board Private Equity 347

thinkspace.com

SEPTEMBER 7, 2012

How to Divide Equity to Startup Founders, Advisors, and Employees. The part that I’d like to zero in on is when you’ve got a high growth company what are some of the best practices out there to distribute equity to the founders, advisors, and employees? Equity for Founders. Equity for Employees.

Equity 62

Equity Employee Founder CTO Hire 62

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 8, 2022

Most entrepreneurs struggle with many startup founders quandaries in building their business, and these key dilemmas are probably the biggest source of pain and failure for the entrepreneur lifestyle. Should you start a company solo or find co-founders to help you? The co-founder relationship dilemma.

Founder 325

Founder Hockey Stick Cofounder Liquidity Event 325

Berkonomics

APRIL 4, 2024

Start-ups with one founder rarely have or need a board of directors. The number of employees grows. These events, one or all, usually are triggers for the founders to seek to create a board for oversight and guidance. In fact, such a board would seem out of place in a one-person company.

Covenant 48

Covenant Software Review Stock Options Vesting 48

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 23, 2023

Most of her lessons were applicable to any government employee venturing out to the private sector. If you find an A-player CIA officer jumping into a founder role mid-way in their career (or decide to start something yourself,) they’ll probably go on to do great things. Talk with multiple employees at the company.

Government 212

Government Advisory Board Salary Sales Cycle 212

ReadWriteStart

APRIL 14, 2023

Every employee will now command a small army of AI assistants that understand complex natural language — no code required. To pick just one example, consider that employees can directly query data lakes using natural language, enjoying a level of access previously reserved for data scientists with specialized skills.

Technical Review 148

Technical Review Ukraine Software Review ChatGPT 148

Steve Blank

MARCH 16, 2016

To most founders a startup is not a job, but a calling. Risk capital takes equity (stock ownership) in your company instead of debt (loans) in exchange for cash. What does this mean for startup founders? A liquidity event means that the equity (the stock) you sold your investor can now be converted into cash.)

Liquidity Event 120

Liquidity Event Founder Liquidation Preference Venture Capital 120

Scott Edward Walker

OCTOBER 19, 2020

In a couple of cases, the founders played lawyer on their own; in the other cases, the founders either used (i) a Web service that did not address IP issues or (ii) an inexperienced law firm. This would arise as a result of a founder improperly “moonlighting” (i.e., Any IP created by a founder (e.g.,

IP 52

IP Software Review Founder Technical Review 52

Up and Running

DECEMBER 1, 2015

At the time, Facebook wasn’t the goliath it is today and so, Choe was given a couple of options: he could have $60,000 in cash, or stock (equal to the equivalent amount of the cash back then). If you’re thinking about extending equity to an employee or a vendor (as in the example above), you should know that the topic is multi-faceted.

Equity 60

Equity Employee Stock Options Vesting 60

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 5, 2020

by Joseph Heller, CEO & Founder of The/Studio Technologies and SuppliedShop.com. Update your inventory so in-stock items are clearly marked. Plan and stock your inventory in advance. It’s always a good idea to start stocking up on holiday inventory early, but this year it’s more important than ever.

Silicon Valley 246

Silicon Valley Stock Technical Review China 246

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 14, 2017

I read commentary or Twitter or blogs and realize that there are also strongly held convictions that there are these evil VCs who do terrible things to mostly altruistic founders. But unlike the popular press reporting of this conflict — 80% of the time it is founder-to-founder conflict and not investor-to-founder conflict.

Cofounder 217

Cofounder Stock Options Equity Technical Review 217

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 1, 2017

During Jeff Immelt’s tenure GE’s stock-market value fell by about half. Its stock is trading where it was 20 years ago. So far in 2017, GE is the worst performing stock on the Dow Jones Industrial average. billion of GE stock – about 1.5% In fact, what happened is activist investors. of the company.

Institutional Investors 233

Institutional Investors Dividend Stock Technical Review 233

The Startup Magazine

SEPTEMBER 21, 2021

Suddenly, big tech companies such as Google and Facebook had foosball tables and Nespresso machines, stocked fridges and free snacks throughout the office. Plenty of businesses still practice this specific business model to captivate and maintain its employees, but it goes much deeper than that. Top four ways to engage employees.

Employee 158

Employee Business Model Chicago Equity 158

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

The Startup Magazine

MARCH 14, 2022

At this stage, the founder mainly raises funding from their sources or family and friends. At this stage, since the company has created a presence for itself, the founder turns to Venture Capitalists to secure funding for further company growth. Let us look at various ways to invest in startups in India. 1) Pre-seed funding round.

Technical Review 145

Technical Review Due Diligence India Startup 145

SoCal CTO

NOVEMBER 14, 2012

I was just asked about a particular startup situation (seed stage, CMO hire, non-founder) and particularly what compensation and equity is appropriate. Quick & Dirty How-To: Employee Stock Option Allocations Seed Stage Compensation What are typical compensation numbers?

CTO Hire 329

CTO Hire Equity Seed Stage Option Pool 329

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 26, 2020

Most startup founders voluntarily exit or are pushed out, and the fun is gone. If you want to give stock options, or have already been giving them, the employees will love the liquidity of their options, and the thought of selling shares for a profit. Analysts want escalating profits.

Cost 319

Cost IPO Exit Strategy Initial Public Offering 319

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 23, 2014

In reality, so-called “Founder’s” shares are simply common stock, issued at the time of startup incorporation, for a very low price, and normally allocated to the multiple initial players commensurate with their investment or role. Vesting always stops when an employee leaves the company. Stock dilution control.

Stock 256

Stock Vesting Common Stock Founder Vesting 256

Up and Running

MARCH 7, 2018

In my time, I learned a thing or two about the importance of preventing employee turnover. Aside from the time-consuming tasks of screening potential employees, interviewing, and re-hiring , losing and replacing employees is expensive. On average, it costs nearly three times an employee’s salary to replace them.

Employee 91

Employee Startup Salary Hiring 91

VC Cafe

JANUARY 14, 2022

The Israeli innovation authority deems the sector suffers from ‘ chronic employee shortage’ The battle for talent has meant that companies had to lure potential employees with billboards, influencer videos, referral schemes, etc. Anecdotally, one founder complained to me that this has shorten his runway by 30%.

Technical Review 158

Technical Review Lock-up Period South Korea 158

View from Seed

APRIL 27, 2020

Founders do not have this luxury. Most founders are going through hell right now, and that is not going away any time soon. Others are just starting out, but the financial safety net they thought they had from a spouse’s job or highly appreciated stock options has disappeared. Wait and see. This is scary. Number of Investments.

Cofounder 194

Cofounder Software Review Portfolio Technical Review 194

Berkonomics

DECEMBER 14, 2023

How about employees all the way down the line and through the corporation? But how about awarding stock options to all employees? These plans are not as popular today because of their complexity and difficulty to manage, lost in favor of simple stock option plans. Would bad news drive your best employees out the door?

Employee 62

Employee Stock Options Stock Equity 62

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 1, 2022

Many employees forget that there isn’t even a market for startup stock, until after the company has gone public, which hasn’t happened positively to many companies in the last few years. CEO brought in to replace the founder, 5 - 10% CTO, CFO, VP of Marketing or Sales, 1.5 - 3% Chief Engineer or Architect, 1 - 1.5%

Stock Options 343

Stock Options Advisory Board Stock Startup 343

YoungUpstarts

AUGUST 18, 2020

by Joseph Heller, CEO & Founder of The/Studio Technologies. As a company grows, corporate leaders must become fixated on the stock price, internal politics and compliance. Since I had that conversation, their stock value has depreciated by 99%. In 2015, McKinsey did a study of average corporate lifespans on the S&P 500.

Fractional CTO 147

Fractional CTO CTO Hire China Silicon Valley 147

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

NOVEMBER 7, 2017

A key employee left the company, which caused the company to fail. Which means they have to stock large amounts of gasoline. “One key employee” is brittle. ” This is a component of why founders are almost always sad and sometimes permanently depressed even after a successful sale of a company.

Software Review 294

Software Review Channel Revenue Non-Compete 294

Eric Friedman

DECEMBER 27, 2021

4/ Streaming equity – venture funds + employee stock becomes more liquid. Maybe the founders are the micro VCs we have been waiting for? Funds and people are looking to take a set multiple on SaaS companies and provide liquidity to founders and VCs and run the underlying companies for profit with their own infrastructure.

Balance Sheet 97

Balance Sheet Stock Private Equity Option Pool 97

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 21, 2017

Many employees forget that there isn’t even a market for startup stock, until after the company has gone public, which hasn’t happened positively to many companies in the last few years. CEO brought in to replace the founder, 5 - 10% CTO, CFO, VP of Marketing or Sales, 1.5 - 3% Chief Engineer or Architect, 1 - 1.5%

Stock 140

Stock Stock Options Advisory Board Startup 140

View from Seed

DECEMBER 4, 2014

Editor’s note: Understanding how to divide founder equity at a startup can be tricky, even to the point of reaching emotional riffs between founders. I like to say that “there are only co-founders” — it’s extraordinarily rare for a successful business to have just a sole founder.

Equity 315

Equity Founder Sweat Equity Cofounder 315

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 17, 2013

Many employees forget that there isn’t even a market for stock, until after the company has gone public, which hasn’t happened positively to many companies in the last few years. Thus, stock doesn’t “pay the mortgage” today, so to speak. Your compensation is the total package of stock plus salary plus benefits.

Stock Options 224

Stock Options Stock Advisory Board Startup 224

Gust

MARCH 16, 2014

In reality, so-called “Founder’s” shares are simply common stock, issued at the time of startup incorporation, for a very low price, and normally allocated to the multiple initial players commensurate with their investment or role. Vesting always stops when an employee leaves the company. Stock dilution control.

Stock 175

Stock Vesting Common Stock Founder Vesting 175

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 6, 2020

If your US-based business is adversely affected by Covid-19 such that you would need to lay off employees imminently and having access to capital would enable you to keep more employees on the payroll then you might be eligible. Am I eligible for the PPP Loan? One thing that is clear. shouldn’t I? The short answer is “no.”

Programming 279

Programming Affiliate SBA Government 279

VC Adventure

AUGUST 16, 2020

Despite how much time companies talk about the importance of their employees and, in many cases, how every employee is also an “owner” of their business through their option program, most companies are pretty ad hoc (or down right sloppy) about how they plan for and execute their option program.

Programming 149

Programming Vesting Equity Software Review 149

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2018

Jeff Katzenberg has a great track record – head of the studio at Paramount, chairman of Disney Studios, co-founder of DreamWorks and now chairman of NewTV. With fewer than 10 employees but almost $2-billion dollars in the bank, they plan on jumping right in. ” Fire, Ready, Aim. He just hired Meg Whitman. And it may work.

Lean 335

Lean Burn Rate Startup IPO 335

YoungUpstarts

MARCH 22, 2019

Without the resources to hire a full time bookkeeper and little understanding of how to get their heads above water, many of these small businesses will founder having struggled due to lack of cash flow and poorly managed accounts. Provide real-time stock and inventory levels. One-stop-shop” accounting software. Staff requirements.

Software Review 176

Software Review Due Diligence Startup Stock 176

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 22, 2012

Many employees forget that there isn’t even a market for stock, until after the company has gone public, which hasn’t happened positively to many companies in the last few years. Thus, stock doesn’t “pay the mortgage” today, so to speak. Your compensation is the total package of stock plus salary plus benefits.

Stock Options 230

Stock Options Stock Advisory Board Startup 230