4 ms·

I'm sure there are plenty of corner cases that will lead to absurd results, but let me know if this is overall worth improving or not. Thanks!

portman 15y ago
"Who pitches investors" should probably be checkboxes, not radio buttons.
- alain94040 15y ago
  It's not meant to say "who shows up and sits in the back of the room while the CEO talks 90% of the time". In my experience, there is one lead person who does fundraising, by contacting investors, setting up meetings, preparing the slides, etc. The question could be clearer. Should I change it?
  - portman 15y ago
    >> In my experience, there is one lead person who does fundraising, by contacting investors, setting up meetings, preparing the slides, etc That's not my experience at all. Almost all the pitches that I've been involved with (either giving, hearing, or advising) have had 2 people trading back and forth with the dialog. And contacting, setting up meetings, etc is often more than one person. Just my $0.02.
martinpannier 15y ago
The quality of comments on HN seems to be falling pretty quickly. It's a good idea. I think technical founders are probably a little underrated in your model. Otherwise, I don't know if equity calculators are a great solution in general. They just tend to shift the problem from the importance startuppers give to different topics to the importance a program gives to these topics. On top of that, discussing non-round amounts >10% (such as 19%, 23%, etc.) just gives much too much importance to a few %, which paradoxically makes discussions tougher down the road. Better to round things up (70/20/10, 60/40) and just leave things at that.
- alain94040 15y ago
  I didn't implement rounding in the first version for a very simple reason: in the case of 3 equal founders, the answer should be 33.33/33.33/33.33. So rounding to the nearest 5 or 10 is wrong. If anyone has a quick algorithm that will provide "smart rounding" following fractions, I'm interested. Otherwise, I'll figure it out.
  - phlux 15y ago
    Personally I think that companies with 3 equal founders need to get 30 each with 10 reserved for initial funding/employees/others.
    - nitrogen 15y ago
      Is it really necessary to allocate less than 100% of initial shares when future rounds of funding and option grants can be handled by diluting the existing shares?

portman 15y ago

"Who pitches investors" should probably be checkboxes, not radio buttons.

alain94040 15y ago
It's not meant to say "who shows up and sits in the back of the room while the CEO talks 90% of the time". In my experience, there is one lead person who does fundraising, by contacting investors, setting up meetings, preparing the slides, etc. The question could be clearer. Should I change it?
- portman 15y ago
  >> In my experience, there is one lead person who does fundraising, by contacting investors, setting up meetings, preparing the slides, etc That's not my experience at all. Almost all the pitches that I've been involved with (either giving, hearing, or advising) have had 2 people trading back and forth with the dialog. And contacting, setting up meetings, etc is often more than one person. Just my $0.02.

martinpannier 15y ago

The quality of comments on HN seems to be falling pretty quickly. It's a good idea. I think technical founders are probably a little underrated in your model. Otherwise, I don't know if equity calculators are a great solution in general. They just tend to shift the problem from the importance startuppers give to different topics to the importance a program gives to these topics. On top of that, discussing non-round amounts >10% (such as 19%, 23%, etc.) just gives much too much importance to a few %, which paradoxically makes discussions tougher down the road. Better to round things up (70/20/10, 60/40) and just leave things at that.

alain94040 15y ago
I didn't implement rounding in the first version for a very simple reason: in the case of 3 equal founders, the answer should be 33.33/33.33/33.33. So rounding to the nearest 5 or 10 is wrong. If anyone has a quick algorithm that will provide "smart rounding" following fractions, I'm interested. Otherwise, I'll figure it out.
- phlux 15y ago
  Personally I think that companies with 3 equal founders need to get 30 each with 10 reserved for initial funding/employees/others.
  - nitrogen 15y ago
    Is it really necessary to allocate less than 100% of initial shares when future rounds of funding and option grants can be handled by diluting the existing shares?