Feld Thoughts
SEPTEMBER 2, 2011
As first time entrepreneurs they did not create an employee options pool; we’ll fix that in a little while. They come up with two options: Hire Praveena as an employee and offer her stock options. If the full pool were to be given out, the dilution is fairly significant to the founders.
Both Sides of the Table
JULY 22, 2010
I’m not sure I really even need to write this at length because Nivi absolutely nailed the topic in his article “ The Option Pool Shuffle.&#. When I went to raise money in 2006 I thought I knew every term in a term sheet but somehow I still got a bit duped by the option pool shuffle. No option pool shuffle.
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Both Sides of the Table
MAY 9, 2018
Your product demo crushed. I also had to negotiate a follow-on round at a portfolio company because new investors were trying to force a bit option-pool top-up that would dilute the founders and existing shareholders and existing investors were fighting over prorata rights. But the real product being bought or sold is “trust.”
Eric Friedman
DECEMBER 27, 2021
1/ Twitter builds out payments into the product – launches a new creator chapter. I think AngelList is leading the charge here with Rolling Funds and other products like free RUVs for companies. A fun update for this year has been moving my predictions to a google sheet for public accountability. First how did I do? = -1 = -.75
Both Sides of the Table
AUGUST 3, 2010
It meant that the management teams hadn’t figured out a product / market fit for their own businesses. If they raise a bunch of capital little ole you isn’t going to be around to have your option pool topped up. That’s why immature teams spend so much time on mergers. Been there, done that, made the mistake.
Hunter Walker
AUGUST 7, 2017
But employee option pool is important enough that I wanted to briefly expand upon my comment above. Of course these conversations also work best when both the founders and investors have had a productive, give-and-take negotiation up to this point. As you can see, Weekend VC Twitter gets pretty wild and crazy!!!!
The Next Web
OCTOBER 21, 2013
More often than not, these companies have no formal option pool, although many have either formal or informal promises to grant options to key employees. While there are no hard and fast rules, when we make a Series A investment we expect to own around 20% of the company on a fully-diluted basis.
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