Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 24, 2016

So the first question I usually get is what percent of the company or equity is that person worth? Just because it was your idea doesn’t mean you “deserve” 90% of the equity. The value in a startup is all about tangible results, so I see no equity value in the idea alone. Amount of venture funding provided.

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Equity Cofounder Technical Cofounder Intellectual Property 120

SoCal CTO

JANUARY 18, 2011

During that time one of the founders had mentioned that for the initial agreed time (3 months, equivalent dollars could be translated to 2% of equity but no agreement was reached at that time). I tried to argue that the equity should be what it was at the time I joined and discussed but there was no formal agreement at that time.

CTO 167

CTO CTO Hire Equity Vesting 167

SoCal CTO

JANUARY 18, 2011

During that time one of the founders had mentioned that for the initial agreed time (3 months, equivalent dollars could be translated to 2% of equity but no agreement was reached at that time). I tried to argue that the equity should be what it was at the time I joined and discussed but there was no formal agreement at that time.

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CTO CTO Hire Equity Vesting 150

The Startup Toolkit

FEBRUARY 15, 2013

false As a cheatsheet, the “normal” equity structure is: Founder terms: 4 year vesting, 1 year cliff, for everyone, including you. 2.0% ) : 4 year vesting, optional cliff, full acceleration on exit. Getting equity structures right. Cliffs & vesting. Vesting is how we fix that. Advisor terms ( 0.5–2.0%

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Vesting Equity Cofounder Technical Review 56

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 22, 2020

Most founders like to talk about their many months or years of sweat-equity , but cash invested is a stronger commitment. Calculate employee stock option values and vesting times, as well as salary. When did this effort really start, including pivots? Look for examples of similar companies and revenue multiples achieved from acquirers.

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Technical Review Due Diligence Sweat Equity Burn Rate 436

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 18, 2023

Most founders like to talk about their many months or years of sweat-equity , but cash invested is a stronger commitment. Calculate employee stock option values and vesting times, as well as salary. When did this effort really start, including pivots? Look for examples of similar companies and revenue multiples achieved from acquirers.

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Sweat Equity Burn Rate Technical Review Intellectual Property 207

Up and Running

DECEMBER 1, 2015

Of course, not every equity compensation story is a David Choe Story. 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. In this article, I’m going to examine: What equity compensation is. Different types of equity compensation.

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Equity Employee Stock Options Vesting 60

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 27, 2023

This is the purpose of a vesting schedule, which issues allocated stock over time. Typically, vesting in startups occurs monthly over four years, starting with the first 25 percent of shares vesting only after an owner has remained active for at least 12 months (one year cliff ). Key founder vesting should have no cliff.

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The Next Web

NOVEMBER 20, 2013

There are a lot of variables to go into calculating a fair equity split a startup team. Understand that not all of this will be granted day one, with everyone having higher stakes in the short run, but you will have an equity cushion to play with as the employee base scales. How do you manage your equity split in your company?

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Cofounder Equity Founder Seed Stage 136

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 4, 2014

The first question I usually get is what percent of the company or equity is that person worth? Just because it was your idea doesn’t mean you “deserve” 90 percent of the equity. The value in a startup is all about tangible results, so there is no equity value in the idea alone. Amount of venture funding provided.

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Cofounder Stock Founder Technical Cofounder 261

VC Adventure

AUGUST 16, 2020

Both of those things are not good for your business, so while it’s ok to offer some level of cash/equity trade-off, it shouldn’t be over-done. My background thesis inherent in this is that employees with options should continue to vest new option as they continue to work for your business.

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Programming Vesting Equity Software Review 149

Hunter Walker

FEBRUARY 20, 2024

Founder Vesting [Jared Hecht/USV] – Jared joined USV earlier this year and it’ll be interesting to see how his writing changes as he adds ‘institutional VC’ to his founder and angel investor knowledge. Stretching things out to a six-year vest helps to prevent co-founder abandonment.

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Founder Vesting Vesting Cap Table Founder 59

techcrunch.com

JUNE 22, 2012

Free Startup Docs: How Much Equity Should Advisors Get? Entrepreneurs want to compensate their mentors and advisors for the time they dedicate to helping their businesses grow, but they have no idea how much equity to offer. In particular, Ressi said, the team is interested in reactions to the above equity matrix. Headphones.

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Equity San Francisco Startup Silicon Valley 94

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 25, 2019

By the way, you will normally only be offered “options,” which vest over a 4-year period after a 1-year “cliff.” It never hurts to ask in a job interview what stock options are available, and don’t fall for the offer which promises to “work out the equity terms later.” Advisory Board Member, 1% Senior Engineer,3 -.7%

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Equity Stock Options Advisory Board Stock 237

Altgate

JUNE 25, 2012

—————– Dead equity — equity held by employees and founders no longer working at the company — is a large and growing problem. Choe opted to forgo a cash payment “in the thousands” for the equity equivalent at the time. Dead equity has always been a significant issue for startups.

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Equity Vesting Cap Table Technical Review 44

www.avc.com

SEPTEMBER 22, 2011

Employee Equity: How Much? The most common comment in this long and complicated MBA Mondays series on Employee Equity is the question of how much equity should you grant when you make a hire. And the amount of equity you need to grant to accomplish these hires is also an art and most certainly not a science.

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Equity Employee CTO Hire Fractional CTO 64

Austin Startup

DECEMBER 9, 2019

Another red flag is when a SIC member asks for equity in your company upfront, without any performance vesting standards. For example, “give me 5% equity in your company and I’ll give you advice and allow you to use my face on your slide deck to raise money.” This is a bad deal for you, if you take it.

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Vesting Early Stage Seed Capital Equity 72

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 15, 2021

This is the purpose of a vesting schedule, which issues allocated stock over time. Typically, vesting in startups occurs monthly over four years, starting with the first 25 percent of shares vesting only after an owner has remained active for at least 12 months (one year cliff ). Key founder vesting should have no cliff.

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Vesting Dilution Stock Founder Vesting 298

Feld Thoughts

SEPTEMBER 2, 2011

The founders each have common shares that will vest over four years. The vesting schedule protects each of the co-founders in case one gets hit by a bus or decides to drop the project after a short period of time. Equity is split 55% and 45%, but where is that officially recorded? Time to update the cap table.

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Cap Table CTO Hire Technical Cofounder Cofounder 133

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. Below, Lee Hower offers advice for approaching these equity discussions objectively and properly. Sometimes co-founders put off the equity split question for some time.

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Equity Founder Sweat Equity Cofounder 315

www.startuplessonslearned.com

MAY 4, 2012

Founders Dilemmas: Equity Splits. The following is an exclusive excerpt which sets up a common pitfall regarding equity splits. In Noam’s dataset, 73% of founding teams split equity within a month of founding, a striking number given the big uncertainties early in the life of any startup. Lessons Learned. by Eric Ries.

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Equity Founder Technical Cofounder Cofounder 72

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 19, 2018

When you’re looking for extra funds, there are typically two options: debt financing and equity financing. It’s important to understand the difference between debt financing and equity financing so when it comes time to get additional funding, you know which is the right fit for your business and how to get it. Equity Financing.

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Finance Equity Vesting Dividend 157

Altgate

AUGUST 25, 2012

—————– Dead equity — equity held by employees and founders no longer working at the company — is a large and growing problem. Choe opted to forgo a cash payment “in the thousands” for the equity equivalent at the time. Dead equity has always been a significant issue for startups.

Equity 28

Equity Vesting Cap Table Technical Review 28

Agile VC

DECEMBER 4, 2014

As a result, one of the trickier things co-founders tackle is determining the equity split amongst the founding group of individuals. Across both the startups I’ve personally been involved in (PayPal and LinkedIn) and the startups in which I’ve been an investor, I’ve seen a broad range of co-founder equity splits.

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Cofounder Equity Founder Sweat Equity 255

www.mattbartus.com

SEPTEMBER 24, 2011

Equity for Consultants – Keep it Simple! posted Feb 3 in Equity , People issues. We will grant him/her X% fully diluted shares up front, and every time he/she makes an introduction, he/she will vest in 100 shares.” The most you lose is 1 or 2 months of vesting on the stock. Blog blog archive. Quora Answers.

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Equity Vesting Silicon Valley Intellectual Property 40

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 1, 2022

By the way, you will normally only be offered “options,” which vest over a 4-year period after a 1-year “cliff.” It never hurts to ask in a job interview what stock options are available, and don’t fall for the offer which promises to “work out the equity terms later.” Advisory Board Member, 1% Senior Engineer,3 -.7%

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Stock Options Advisory Board Stock Startup 343

www.inc.com

SEPTEMBER 24, 2011

Should You Share Equity with Consultants? To grow his cash-strapped start-up, Parker ended up sharing equity -- not only with employees, but also with consultants and vendors. Parker found that equity as compensation helped build loyalty to his company -- even among consultants. But sharing equity can have pitfalls, too.

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Fractional CTO Equity Iowa Technical Cofounder 40

Gust

APRIL 9, 2014

Equity dilution works when the same pie is divided among more people. Over time, other people receive pieces of equity in exchange for work (employee stock options), money (seed, angel and venture investors), services (attorneys, directors, etc.). Uncategorized company equity dilution founder investors startup'

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Dilution Equity Vesting Stock Options 150

YoungUpstarts

AUGUST 19, 2019

For equity trading, the general rule of thumb is to start an investment portfolio of at least $1000. Everyone gets to learn something new and shares a mutually-vested interest in success. Low $$ Barrier to Entry. However, the issue for many people starting out in their careers is that $1000 might not be feasible.

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Investment Bankers Technical Review Stock Vesting 147

K9 Ventures

OCTOBER 27, 2016

One of these norms is how founder vesting and employee vesting works. I won’t get into employee vesting today as that has much more to consider than I have time to cover in this short post today. Here is a good summary post from Cooley GO on Founder Vesting. The first is fairly obvious.

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Founder Vesting Vesting Founder Term Sheet 48

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 8, 2022

You have very little money, and you don’t want to give away your equity. Giving equity is realistic, but base it on contribution and role, with vesting after time and milestones. Every founding member wants to be compensated richly for the risk and the unknown. Recognize that the best people don’t work for free.

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Eric Friedman

JUNE 27, 2016

Total = 0.75% for 3 advisors that vest as you see fit to help you over the next 1–4 years (more on vesting below). Bigger/better advisors who get more equity have things like; excellent domain expertise to help you avoid pitfalls, deep connections within the industry to help with the intros, partnerships, and more.

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Equity Vesting Cap Table Common Stock 98

Agile VC

DECEMBER 4, 2014

As a result, one of the trickier things co-founders tackle is determining the equity split amongst the founding group of individuals. Across both the startups I’ve personally been involved in (PayPal and LinkedIn) and the startups in which I’ve been an investor, I’ve seen a broad range of co-founder equity splits.

Cofounder 173

Cofounder Equity Founder Sweat Equity 173

The Startup Magazine

FEBRUARY 21, 2024

This hands-on approach is indicative of a vested interest in the success of the business, far removed from the notion of lending to “bad” companies. Beyond providing capital, private credit firms often engage in strategic partnerships with their portfolio companies.

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Technical Review Due Diligence Bankruptcy Intellectual Property 134

www.instigatorblog.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

Changing Equity Structures for Early Startup Employees Tweet Recently someone asked me for advice on how much equity they should give to their early employees. 1% but they’re not going to be overwhelmed by it, or insanely incentivized by that equity alone. I do believe that early employees should trade salary for equity.

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Equity Employee Startup Vesting 41

NZ Entrepreneur

SEPTEMBER 29, 2021

Remuneration will reflect the stage of the startup but it’s generally at a rate of about $500-1000 a meeting or directors might be paid in equity at about 0.5-0.75% This equity will vest over 2-3 years. 0.75% for directors and 1-2% for the chair.

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Technical Review Software Review New Zealand Due Diligence 88

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 24, 2011

By the way, you will normally only be offered “options,” which vest over a 4-year period after a 1-year “cliff.” It never hurts to ask in a job interview what stock options are available, and don’t accept an offer which promises to “work out the equity terms later.” Advisory Board Member, 1% Senior Engineer,3 -.7%

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Equity Advisory Board Stock Options Stock 234