Venture Hacks

“Trust, but verify.”
– Ronald Reagan
Summary: Investors trust the entrepreneurs they back. But they verify their expectations with contracts and control. You should do the same—with the same tools investors use: contracts and control.
Why do investors want to control their investments through board seats and protective provisions? Shouldn’t they just give entrepreneurs bags of money and [...]

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As usual, there were many mind-expanding comments this week—here are some of the very best.
The very lucky winner of this week’s mug for great contributions in the field of venture hacking is indicated with a subtle ball of fire.
Vesting
“Anonymous” discusses his experience with getting vested for time served and how his investors “poked out” two [...]

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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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We love the quality of the comments on Venture Hacks. You’re missing out if you’re not reading them.
A lot of the comments contain great anecdotes from founders. Others contain good questions which we make sure to answer.
Here’s a few recent ones that are especially good. You can also subscribe to our comments RSS [...]

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“We talked to a lot of different angel investors and venture capitalists, but no one really ‘got’ what we were doing — that is until we met Google.”
– Dennis Crowley, Founder of Dodgeball, May 2005
“It’s no real secret that Google wasn’t supporting dodgeball the way we expected. The whole experience was incredibly frustrating for us [...]

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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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