Category Archives for Blog
Investor Repellent
There are many things that can repel an investor. Most of them have to do with a faulty business model or lack of a competitive advantage. However, sometimes your business will have real potential but the investor will flee when they take a look under the covers and see how the business is organized or financed during the formation stage.
Continue readingThe JOBS Act: Is it a Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing?
If entrepreneurs are successful, they will have to issue actual equity to a bunch of absentee owners in small lots. These shareholders will now have to sign off on shareholders agreements, operating agreements, and a variety of other things that can make life pretty complicated and scare off real investors.
Continue readingNo Free Ride for Free Riders
Although a dynamic equity model is intrinsically fairer to participants, fixed equity splits will continue to be the norm because 1) dynamic models are a relatively new concept and 2) fixed models allow experienced entrepreneurs to take advantage of less experience entrepreneurs.
Continue readingMy Feelings on Fairness
Treating people fairly in a start-up company means giving them a reward that is proportionate to the contributions made relative to others participating in the business. In other words, if […]
Continue readingA La Mode
Throughout the book, Slicing Pie, I reference a variety of additional material designed to supplement or elaborate on the content in the book. You can find this material here. Thank you for reading my […]
Continue readingThe Early Bird Gets the Pie
One initial concern that I get about Slicing Pie is the fear that founders won’t get enough of the pie even though they were there during the beginning. Most people […]
Continue readingPaying Consultant Grunts with Pie
In Slicing Pie I recommend providing a sliding scale buyout to freelancers and consultants who provide services to the company. In this scenario the consultant can earn up to 200% […]
Continue readingThe Good Way to Say Good Bye
There are four circumstances under which a person can leave your company based on two variables. The variables are “how” and “why”. The how can be that they decided to leave or you fired them; the why can be for good reason or for no good reason.
Continue readingSlicing Pie: A Guide to Dividing Up Early-Stage Start-up Equity
First Published on Tech Cocktail (Tech.co) Not long ago, I was approached by one of my students at Northwestern, who was distraught over a situation in a fledging company that […]
Continue readingSlicing Pie: a Primer in Dividing Up Early-Stage Equity
Fairness starts with laying out the rules and agreeing to follow them. This means that we need to allocate equity based on a set of rules.
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