Jason and I welcome Matt McCall from DFJ Portage as today’s guest VC blogger.  We sent Matt one of our backlog questions – his response is below.  Matt also posted it on his excellent blog under the title How VC’s Determine % Ownership Thresholds. Question: What’s a completely generic range of equity a VC typically […]

Question: As a start-up with no history and no customers (we haven’t launched yet) how do I figure out how much equity to assign to myself as the founder? I have spent the last one year developing and writing the business plan. I hired two consultants both MBA’s with real world experience to help in […]

Dick Costolo (aka Ask the Wizard) has two excellent posts up titled Options Acceleration and Employee Options and Grant Size.  If you are granting options or receiving an option grant, these are both excellent posts to read.

Q: On average, what percentage of a company does the “typical” entrepreneur own by the time of a “successful” exit? Obviously, huge YMMW, but what’s a reasonable expectation, say, assuming two founders, middle-of-the-road terms from investors, two or three rounds of funding, and an acquisition? Or is the range so broad as to be meaningless? […]

(Brad) Dave Naffzinger has another excellent post up on Startup Stock Options titled Vesting Schedules & Acceleration.  I’ve written about vesting plenty of times and gotten plenty of comments thanking me for the VC view but suggesting that the entrepreneurs view might be different.  Dave is a co-founder and early employee of several companies – […]

Dave Naffzinger – VP at Judy’s Book and previously a co-founder of Quova has started a series of posts on stock options.  His first one is titled Startup Stock Options: ISOs vs. NSOs.  Excellent stuff if you are an entrepreneur.