Re:Lecture 18: Legal and Accounting Basics for Startups
by Udo on Friday November 21, 2014 @06:08AM
(#8640749)
> it's got to be a pretty good business before it qualifies for VC equity funding [...] has the business take an equity check and suddenly owns 0% of the business, to start to get back some ownership
The core value proposition of VC equity funding seems to me is enabling the business in the first place, or at least taking the business to places it could otherwise never reach. Obviously, there are lots of cases where that simply isn't necessary - and nobody likes to take on unnecessary equity holders if they don't need the money.
But if you do need the money, it's not a surprise this comes at a cost. People who invest in companies want to make sure those companies have a decent shot at succeeding. The vesting scheme is designed to incentivize founders to keep working on their company, and if that looks very similar to vesting schemes early employees get that's not an accident.
The same goes for your more general criticism of SV as a location. There are startups where this is simply not relevant. Nobody wants to move their life and business to another (more expensive) location if they don't expect it to be better there. But for a certain type of startup, the expectation that SV is better than any other part of the world is absolutely justified.
Everything is a tradeoff. It makes sense to evaluate these tradeoffs carefully. Money has a cost. Optimizing your opportunities (usually) has a cost. Sometimes you need investors to succeed, sometimes you don't.
To put it bluntly, if I can become the next Facebook while sitting in my garage in Vladivostok not talking to anybody, there is absolutely no reason to move to Silicon Valley and give away most of my company. That's a big if, though.
The core value proposition of VC equity funding seems to me is enabling the business in the first place, or at least taking the business to places it could otherwise never reach. Obviously, there are lots of cases where that simply isn't necessary - and nobody likes to take on unnecessary equity holders if they don't need the money.
But if you do need the money, it's not a surprise this comes at a cost. People who invest in companies want to make sure those companies have a decent shot at succeeding. The vesting scheme is designed to incentivize founders to keep working on their company, and if that looks very similar to vesting schemes early employees get that's not an accident.
The same goes for your more general criticism of SV as a location. There are startups where this is simply not relevant. Nobody wants to move their life and business to another (more expensive) location if they don't expect it to be better there. But for a certain type of startup, the expectation that SV is better than any other part of the world is absolutely justified.
Everything is a tradeoff. It makes sense to evaluate these tradeoffs carefully. Money has a cost. Optimizing your opportunities (usually) has a cost. Sometimes you need investors to succeed, sometimes you don't.
To put it bluntly, if I can become the next Facebook while sitting in my garage in Vladivostok not talking to anybody, there is absolutely no reason to move to Silicon Valley and give away most of my company. That's a big if, though.