Startup mentor, advocate for entrepreneurs, tech, finance and operations executive with significant startup (to exit) and F500 experience. | Cycling relaxes me, Big ideas inspire me, Curious about everything else.
As a non-technical founder of a software company, there are multiple ways to communicate what you want and how you want your app to work to software engineers and developers.
In order to increase the likelihood of success, the goal is to make sure they know exactly what you want, without having to continuously stop and ask questions....I'll help you through an organized method for doing this.
Turn an idea into a real business...not just something you do in your basement. No idea what you're good at or want to do? Have a side-gig you want to make your full-time thing? Trying to figure out how to go from idea to startup to exit? Let's talk!
Most companies eventually get caught in a place where client's put downward pressure on revenues and employees put upward pressure on costs and time off. That's when leaders have to get innovative.
Hi there. First, congratulations on thinking ahead of the need...so many of the companies I work with are 'passion first' projects and they forget that ultimately, they're trying to build a company and need to think about that structure in the beginning.
It's my experience that founders should set aside about 20% of their total shares for an 'employee pool'. That leaves you with the balance and you can raise 3 rounds (F&F, Seed and A) before you'll be diluted below 50% (and there's a way to handle the voting control even lower than that).
As you bring on your C-level folks, they'll be awarded 3-5% vesting over a 3-4 year period with a 1 year cliff. That's reasonably a standard way to handle things but of course, every situation can be different.
Again, congrats on your desire to go for it and best of luck!
Brian Slawin Portfolio Manager @ Ben Franklin Technology PArtners
