Co-Founders… Where is the line between equality and socialism?
I was asked a question last week about co-founders compensation, specifically around guidance around splitting equity and salary requirements for the early contributors for a new start-up. The person was asking for the benchmark data for percentages to validate the right thing to do between two co-founders and one early employee that had more demanding
Read MoreWhy cheap is worse than free in services pricing
Recently, I had a chance to judge a business plan competition for one of the universities in Seattle. One of the contestants at the event was a services company that wanted to be the “Best (services type) firm in Seattle.” But they also wanted to offer cheap services to showcase their capabilities… (Before I’m perceived as
Read MoreHow not to spend 33,280 hours of your life…
I just wrapped up the third semester of the Founder Institute in Seattle (#SEFI), the second that I’ve completed as the Director. Since the start of the institute in 2009 I’ve also had a chance over that time to mentor in other cities, specifically, Singapore and the Bay Area. Over that time I’ve seen some
Read MoreStandard Seed Investor Docs
Ted Wang (Fenwick & West) has created a standard set of investor documents for Series Seed funding rounds. It’s an Open Source legal effort designed to take the 100 pages of term sheets to about 30. The approach is down the middle, not biased to the funder or the entrepreneur and without the potential gotchas
Read MoreStartup Pitch Bootcamp (FREE) – by the Founder Institute
April 7th – 6:00 – 8:00pm Davis Wright Tremaine LLP – 1201 Third Ave., Suite 2200, Seattle The Founder Institute will be hosting a free “Pitch Bootcamp” to help you articulate your startup business ideas. In just two hours we’ll help you refine your idea, improve your pitch, and find a co-founder. Best of all it’s
Read MoreBetter funding alternatives for startups…
Great article by Paul Graham on why “Fixed-size, multi-investor angel rounds are such a bad idea for startups”. Convertible notes are easy and inexpensive for early stage startups… historically the alternative was to set a fixed price (guess) and round and take multiple angels. The problem was that the early Angels take the risk and the
Read MoreThe Year of the Startup Default
The Year of the Startup Default – TheFunded.com Open Letter This is a post by Adeo Ressi about Angel debt conversion and seed round pricing options and structures. http://thefunded.com/funds/open
Read MoreThe things you like to do and those you have to do…
Its always difficult to all entrepreneurs, especially first timers to separate out the urgent from the important. This is particularly true as it relates to their product or service offering. The technical founders would rather keep coding then talk to ta customer and the marketing/sales folks may not understand the complexity of the product they are trying
Read MoreMinimum Viable Product (MVP) and Features to Launch
One of the topics that has come up recently in the Seattle Founder Institute (#sefi) as well as some other startups I’m working with is the question of how you narrow down the Minimum Features or Minimum Viable Product to launch your startup? There’s a good definition at Wikipedia from a product development standpoint. How do you
Read MoreWhere to Incorporate – Washington vs. Delaware…
Great blog post from Joe Wallin at Davis Wright Tremaine, about the differences incorporating between Washington and Delaware… This is a topic that comes up in the Founder Institute about incorporation. LLC, S Corp, C Corp, Delaware, NV, WA, etc… Typically we’re with Delaware (caveat, I’m not an attorney and dont’ play one on TV).
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