geoburke

5 ms·

1.
by geoburke 11mo ago
I live in SF but moving away next month. I've got a pretty sweet 2016 428i xDrive Gran Coupe that I will need to part with. Instead of selling it, let's trade the car for equity or a SAFE note in your YC-backed company. Details on
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by geoburke 3y ago
Can you link to the service? I haven’t seen it
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by geoburke 3y ago
Are you thinking $100 can’t support 60-90 minutes of a cook’s time and turn a profit?
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by geoburke 3y ago
San Francisco. US.
5.
What if Instacart groceries came delivered by a pro chef to cook your meal?
1 points by geoburke 3y ago|9 comments
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by geoburke 5y ago
What’s the best way to creatively write with this? Auto-generate a couple sentences and then delete and replace?
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by geoburke 6y ago
I'm not a poker player, but today a friend analogized SIDE POTS; opt-in diversification with 3 more opportunities per hand. De-risks every player participating in the side pot.
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by geoburke 6y ago
Agreed. Avoid the need for Founderpool by avoiding becoming a founder =P
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by geoburke 6y ago
Misdirected blame to preserve ego does not excuse the fact that the founders are the ones with the biggest impact on their own success. Access to a network incentivized to provide resources, fundraising, introductions, hiring, etc, can only
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by geoburke 6y ago
Well said. This safety net is meant to help founders make better long term success decisions.
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by geoburke 6y ago
Why?
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by geoburke 6y ago
This is secondary market liquidity, yes? If so, there's unfortunately no demand till series C, and the board needs to allow secondary sales, which competes with the company's own ability to raise capital. We're seeing VCs at
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by geoburke 6y ago
It's something we're looking into. Would be a great market But for clarity, it's generally understood the employees do not bear the same risk as the founders, who contributed months/years of sweat equity as well as actua
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by geoburke 6y ago
Here, walking away doesn't leave the entrepreneur wealthy, but we hope, covers some opportunity cost. A safety net. This can provide a source of strength in VC negotiations as well as a foundation for the founder to make calm, rational
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by geoburke 6y ago
Interesting take. Makes sense if the timeframe for startup success (profitable exit) was as truncated as startup death. Startups either die, show signs of dying, or get acqui-hired much more quickly than the startups that guarantee's (
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by geoburke 6y ago
Much of our research has been with founders at YC & 500 (cohorts who represent the Beyond Meats of the world). The majority we spoke to, including the breakout unicorns, stated they would have have participated in equity pooling with th
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by geoburke 6y ago
These are great points. Someone else addressed much of it but one thing to add is founders can actually sniff out each others' BS, sometimes better than career VCs. Seems to be common knowledge in SV that builders make the best investo
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by geoburke 6y ago
Not only that, Erik has done a good job cheerleading the concept of risk pooling for founders: https://twitter.com/eriktorenberg/status/1123331923466522624
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by geoburke 6y ago
We wondered the same. Can't speak for YC but we do understand that most funds would have trouble running this internally due to fiduciary conflicts of interest and management concerns.
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by geoburke 6y ago
This comes out of the founder's vested shares -- not the company stock -- transferrable only if there's ever an exit event. It's arguably more desirable for investors, the board, and acquirers than if the founder sold shares
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by geoburke 6y ago
As the first pool forms we'll collect the members' desired requirements for vesting rules, and write those into the legal docs.
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by geoburke 6y ago
You could consider the other members of the pool as an extension of your advisory board. They are incentivized to share their resources, wisdom, network, strategy, and 1-1 help on specific needs like this.
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by geoburke 6y ago
While we go through a vetting process for all applicants, pools are ultimately formed through a peer-selection process based on ranking. The presence of top tier VC backers is one of several major factors a founder will rank with.
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by geoburke 6y ago
Yes, we see that as most frictionless way to accomplish this at scale
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by geoburke 6y ago
If you can sell shares on the open market, that's certainly a win, but it's likely to occur until series C and many boards may block secondary market sales as it competes with the company's own ability to raise capital.
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by geoburke 6y ago
I agree. Just because someone's opinion is in the minority doesn't mean well-articulated arguments like this should be downvoted, but rather praised for stating the contrarian viewpoint.
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by geoburke 6y ago
You may have missed the community aspect; the vested interest in mutual success among founders. Pooling is one of the most requested features by YC grads, including founders of unicorns. After demo day, mutual activity among the batch pract
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by geoburke 6y ago
Contribution is done through a note. Not taxable until the transfer of shares upon some liquidity/exit event in the future.
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by geoburke 6y ago
Good way to get oneself kicked out of the pool before fully vesting.
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by geoburke 6y ago
There are obviously two schools of thought here, but IMO a founder who is at least financially comfortable will make better long term decisions and take actions influenced less by personal stress.

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