Venture Hacks

Thanks to FastIgnite, a startup advisory firm, for sponsoring Venture Hacks this week. This post is by Simeon Simeonov, the firm’s founder and CEO (and formerly a partner at Polaris Ventures). If you like it, check out Sim’s blog and tweets @simeons. – Nivi
The best strategy for not having to fire your co-founders is [...]

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We received a lot of good questions and feedback on How to pick a co-founder:
Is two co-founders the only way to go? How do we split up the company? Who’s the boss? How do I know when to compromise on a co-founder?
So Naval and I recorded a 40-minute interview to answer your questions, explain how [...]

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Update: Also see our 40-minute interview on this topic.
Picking a co-founder is your most important decision. It’s more important than your product, market, and investors.
The ideal founding team is two individuals, with a history of working together, of similar age and financial standing, with mutual respect. One is good at building products and the other [...]

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We’ve updated the presentation in A quick and dirty guide to starting up. The new presentation includes the notes that accompany each slide.
I’ve also included the new presentation below. Watch it in full screen mode for maximum pleasure. The full screen button is at the bottom right of the embed and it looks like this: [...]

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Naval recently presented A Quick and Dirty Guide to Starting Up to Girls In Tech:

(Slides: A Quick and Dirty Guide to Starting Up (pdf))
Here are some of my favorite quotes from the presentation:
“We are faced with insurmountable opportunities.” – Pogo
The most important thing: idea intelligence connections experience determination.
Ideas, and therefore NDAs, are worthless.
“… as in [...]

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“If you want to improve your chances, you should think far more about who you can recruit as a cofounder than the state of the economy. And if you’re worried about threats to the survival of your company, don’t look for them in the news. Look in the mirror.”
– Paul Graham

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Our previous vesting hacks have discussed getting vested for time served, acceleration upon termination, and acceleration upon a sale. This article is a collection of four vesting microhacks you can use to supersize your vesting.
1. Reclaim a terminated co-founder’s unvested shares.
A terminated co-founder’s unvested shares are typically cancelled. The resulting reverse dilution benefits the founders, [...]

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“During the whole funding process they said, ‘We’re interested in you guys because of your management team; we think you’re fantastic…’ Two weeks later they pull me into the office – before even the first board meeting – and say, ‘We want to replace you as CEO.’”
– Mark Fletcher, Founders at Work
Summary: You made a [...]

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“By the time we did the financing we had been working on [the company for] 2 years, but they only vested us a year. So, they got a year of free vesting from us.”
– Joe Kraus, Founders at Work
Summary: Don’t agree to vest all of your shares just because it is supposedly “standard”. Get [...]

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