And finally:
– Keep it simple, not everybody wants to be an entrepreneur
– Is the team rich or king?
– Buyback terms?
– Reward 50% based on personal / 50% on team (results)
– Let people choose, hardcash or stock
– Don’t forget to evaluate how your plan will fit the hard times
– Silicon Valley usual allocation of stock-options
CEO 5,4%
CTO 1,9%
Sales 1,2%
BD 1,23%
Consider 10% for Board Members
– Consider to set a cash reward plan for milestones
– A broken promise is not broken if redefined (particularly before the due date)
– Remember to model exit scenarios
– Remember considering tax consequences (not just for the company and branches, but for the considered employees nationalities)
– If you are looking for a place for HQ you must consider:
Business friendly
Tax
Talent (availability)
– For euro/HQ you should consider Lithuania (savings, biz-friendly with facilities) or Netherlands (low VAT)
– For US company “localization”:
Delaware is complex for an IPO
For talent … think a bout Oklahoma or Oregon for good engineering (difficult in CA, for example)
– For getting more business abroad: use piggybacking with bigger companies or alliances
– Why the banks does not loan you, unless you are BIG?
The MBAs who crowded banks years ago, were used to don’t ask about assets when you present big revenue and cash-flow more or less stable. You can get this in big companies whose revenue is about 100 million a year.
They started to look at companies’ assets when revenue was from 10 to 100 millions a year. So they could guarantee the loan if the cash-flow where not so clear.
Of course, they didn’t allocate any resources to “invest” in loans to companies under 10 millions a year, they could loan the other ones more securely.
When hard times came, they didn’t change strategy, but the performance of a large number of companies plummeted so now many more companies are in the last step and they are not “worthy”the resources allocation.
(more or less)