Steve Blank

OCTOBER 23, 2023

At first many start-ups hire a lobbying firm. Larger companies hiring a Chief of Staff often look for someone who has an MBA, experience with one of the big consulting firms, or experience doing the job already. They can vote to hire and fire the CEO. A Board of Directors has a formal and legal role.

Government 212

Government Advisory Board Salary Sales Cycle 212

Steve Blank

JULY 11, 2017

Before the rapid rise of Unicorns, (startups with a valuation over a billion dollars), when boards were still in control, they “encouraged” the hiring of “adult supervision” of the founders after they found product/market fit. These new CEOs would also act as a brake to temper the founder’s excesses. The founders.

Part-Time VPE 308

Part-Time VPE Liquidity Event Stock Engineer 308

Transformify

MARCH 14, 2020

At the same time, the stock markets collapsed, and most businesses already report skyrocketing losses, unmet revenue targets and insufficient stock due to production slow down in China, India and the rest of the world. So, who benefits the most from work from home jobs and diversity hiring programs?

Hiring 98

Hiring Bulgaria Italy Spain 98

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 9, 2020

A sales fanatic on the founder team helps to contain that risk. The combination of technical insight, founder authority, and sales experience is a hard-to-beat advantage in a competitive market. The rest can come from early hires (with stock options to assure commitment), equity investors, or even strategic partners.

Technical Cofounder 308

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Advisory Board Stock Options 308

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 22, 2010

Things like “ participating preferred stock &# in legalese unsurprisingly never actually call out, “hey, this is the participating preferred language.&# We got a3x participating liquidation preference with interest (not participating with a 3x cap, but 3x participating. Investors own 25%, the founders own 75%.

Valuation 405

Valuation Liquidation Preference Pre-Money Valuation Term Sheet 405

Feld Thoughts

SEPTEMBER 2, 2011

This week they set out to create their cap table and hire a CTO. 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. Time to update the cap table.

Cap Table 133

Cap Table CTO Hire Technical Cofounder Cofounder 133

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 27, 2011

Founders vs. Early Employees To help with this discussion, let me start with a definition of "early employee." The first few people into a startup are on a spectrum of founder vs. early employee. Founders are likely not paid for a long time and have a sizeable equity percentage for early risk and having the concept.

Early Stage 391

Early Stage Equity CTO Hire Sweat Equity 391

Berkonomics

APRIL 4, 2024

Start-ups with one founder rarely have or need a board of directors. 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. Ownership is spread among several classes of investors.

Covenant 48

Covenant Software Review Stock Options Vesting 48

ReadWriteStart

JULY 5, 2023

Neko Health is well positioned to achieve its goals, as the board of directors recently welcomed notable investors such as Niklas Zennstrom, co-founder of Skype, and Klaus Hommels, founder of the venture capital firm Lakestar. In addition, the images captured by the 3D scanner are sent to a remote location for analysis.

Sweden 126

Sweden Artificial Inteligence Cofounder Technical Review 126

View from Seed

MARCH 24, 2021

Doing Reference Checks on VCs “Try to speak to at least one founder that the investor has worked with in a failed investment. The Seed VC Decision Tree “If the market is attractive and there just isn’t great founder/market fit, we will be open minded as well. Hiring Your Team. This is not always easy to do.

Seed Stage 177

Seed Stage Hiring IPO Analytics 177

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

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 25, 2014

When I heard that Larry Ellison was stepping down as Oracle ’s CEO I asked Kathryn to think about the skills she saw in a young Larry Ellison that might make today’s founders winners. Larry was loathe to sell any of the company stock; he generally took a dim view of VCs and preferred to bootstrap. Hired the Smartest People.

Technical Review 333

Technical Review Venture Capital Software Review Database 333

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 1, 2014

The first is that it could carry limited inventory in stock because it had limited physical shelf space. So today I’m excited to announce that Upfront Ventures is leading an $8 million round with some amazing co-investors including Founder’s Fund, OATV, Lowercase, High Peaks, Collaborative Fund and many great angel investors.

Technical Review 380

Technical Review Software Review Cofounder CTO Hire 380

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. He just hired Meg Whitman. Startups wrote business plans, generated expansive 5-year forecasts and executed (hired, spent and built) to the plan. The result?

Lean 335

Lean Burn Rate Startup IPO 335

VC Cafe

JANUARY 14, 2022

Given that some of these new stocks have low trading volume, in practice the lock up period can be longer. Anecdotally, one founder complained to me that this has shorten his runway by 30%. Several discussions on social media have founders asking if they should hedge their FOREX risk. Global tech correction.

Technical Review 158

Technical Review Lock-up Period South Korea 158

Transformify

AUGUST 29, 2017

But there’s one field that remains stubbornly unscientific: recruitment and hiring. Simply having administrators black out candidates’ names and addresses before they’re reviewed by hiring managers is one surprisingly effective, easy place to start. And can really bring down morale during a tough hiring process.

Hiring 40

Hiring Technical Review Portfolio Software Engineering 40

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 16, 2010

At one of our initial board meetings we had agreed on the general principle of an advisory board and put together an overall stock budget to compensate advisors. One of the first potential advisors I reached out to was someone who 10 years earlier tried to hire me as the VP of Marketing of his new division at Sun Microsystems.

Advisory Board 260

Advisory Board Part-Time VPE CTO Hire Stock 260

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. Should founders have anti-dilution rights?

Equity 62

Equity Employee Founder CTO Hire 62

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 30, 2014

It’s true the some VCs have started writing so many checks that they resemble stock pickers but the majority of us still have less than 10 board seats at any time and tend to go pretty deep so the result is that we care deeply about where we commit our time. I seldom hire patent attorneys during due diligence but this was too important.

Technical Review 418

Technical Review Software Review Due Diligence CTO Hire 418

VC Cafe

JULY 21, 2020

If you’re a startup founder, you’re probably looking at Google in some way, maybe in terms of partnership or acquisition, but maybe some level of suspicion and fear. A relationship with Google can take many forms, which I will detail in this post as a guide for founders exploring their relationship with big tech.

Technical Review 131

Technical Review Startup Early Stage Cloud 131

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.

Software Review 176

Software Review Due Diligence Startup Stock 176

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 18, 2018

A sales fanatic on the founder team helps to contain that risk. The combination of technical insight, founder authority, and sales experience is a hard-to-beat advantage in a competitive market. The rest can come from early hires (with stock options to assure commitment), equity investors, or even strategic partners.

Technical Cofounder 144

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Advisory Board Startup 144

YoungUpstarts

APRIL 30, 2020

Rosenstrauch, Founder and CEO of FUEL Partnerships. Speed equals immediacy AND certainty of delivery (in stock): Consumers want same day or next day delivery more than ever before. Walmart, Amazon, Instacart are all attempting to rapidly hire hundreds of thousands of employees to meet the expectations of their customers.

America 222

America New York City Technical Review Distribution 222

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 11, 2014

A sales fanatic on the founder team helps to contain that risk. The combination of technical insight, founder authority, and sales experience is a hard-to-beat advantage in a competitive market. The rest can come from early hires (with stock options to assure commitment), equity investors, or even strategic partners.

Technical Cofounder 245

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Advisory Board Startup 245

Steve Blank

MAY 19, 2015

While he kept bringing the conversation back to their big valuation I tried to steer the conversation back to how they were going to deal with: training the influx of new hires – in both culture and job specific tasks. retaining their existing hires who were working for intern-like salaries with little equity. the company had.

Technical Review 120

Technical Review Salary Early Stage Software Review 120

Austin Startup

OCTOBER 6, 2018

My talk was about the 7 lessons I’ve learned on the journey from founder to CEO. I started off my talk emphasizing that the journey matters most in your transformation from founder to CEO. Nothing says more about your culture than who you hire, who you fire, and who you promote. where I am now a Venture Partner?—?in

Founder 51

Founder Cofounder Software Review San Francisco 51

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

NOVEMBER 7, 2017

Which means they have to stock large amounts of gasoline. You can’t just hire three more fantastic developers to create a robust engineering team, and you can’t just snap your fingers and find three new efficient, productive marketing channels. Again this is what advanced data centers do. Talk about brittle!

Software Review 294

Software Review Channel Revenue Non-Compete 294

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 5, 2012

Can you imagine investing in the stock market where your price was determined at a future date and the better that company performed the HIGHER the price you paid for that investment. In fact, most early investor work hard to help their startups get to the next level so it makes no sense for the angel investor and founders to be at odds.

Ratchet 354

Ratchet Liquidation Preference Equity Stock 354

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 10, 2022

Thus if you want to change the world with your new business, you need to follow the example of startups like Zappos , which hires according to cultural fit first. As a startup founder or executive, you need to subvert your own troubles for the sake of the team. Good hiring, training, and mentoring are the best motivators.

Stock Options 362

Stock Options Salary Leadership Stock 362

VC Adventure

AUGUST 16, 2020

It strikes me that many founders never really consider this question. Many founders feel that it’s equitable to have everyone share in the upside and feel like owners. But it will also change the nature of your workforce if you only hire employees that can work for well below market cash comp.

Programming 149

Programming Vesting Equity Software Review 149

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2011

I’ve decided to take all of my private conversations and subjective points-of-view on the topic and make them public in a keynote speech at the Founder Showcase in San Francisco on June 15th. The price of public stocks change instantly in reaction to news that is perceived to affect the future value of that company.

Pre-Money Valuation 336

Pre-Money Valuation Valuation Silicon Valley Stock 336

Up and Running

SEPTEMBER 19, 2017

They allow you to hire more people, purchase new technology, and establish new business connections, among many other benefits. That’s because obtaining a pre-money valuation for a concept level technology company in excess of $1 million is difficult, particularly for a startup founder without a proven track record.

Private Equity 94

Private Equity Pre-Money Valuation Equity Startup 94

ReadWriteStart

OCTOBER 22, 2019

According to Toni Schneider, a Partner at True Ventures, and a Team-Lead at Automattic, boundaryless teams confer a real advantage; “You can hire great people wherever you find them: Once your company is untethered from one physical location, your pool of available job applicants becomes the entire world.

Distribution 117

Distribution San Francisco Silicon Valley El Salvador 117

The Next Web

OCTOBER 7, 2013

They were referring to non-founder engineers, most commonly the first hire for technology businesses. is frequently granted ownership significantly less than that of the founders. However, at the very early stage, they are taking as much risk with their future as the founders. Engineer #1?

Engineer 129

Engineer Dilution Option Pool Vesting 129

om.co

FEBRUARY 5, 2013

Om Malik is the founder of GigaOM. He is the founder of Desiparty.com. Evolution of a Founder: Lessons I have learned. Being a startup founder is hard, tough, frustrating and rewarding – possibly all within the space of a nanosecond. Are You Winning As a Founder? He is a venture partner at True Ventures.

Founder 80

Founder Conversion Distribution Silicon Valley 80

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 however you are giving a “normal employee” an incentive stock option plan (more on that later), that’s entirely different.

Equity 60

Equity Employee Stock Options Vesting 60

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 10, 2016

Every startup founder loves to prompt for questions from investors and potential key team members about their vision, and the huge opportunity that can be had with their disruptive technology. Most founders like to talk about their many months or years of sweat-equity , but cash invested is a stronger commitment.

Sweat Equity 120

Sweat Equity Burn Rate Technical Review Intellectual Property 120